Friday 10 June 2022: Water Supply Resilience
What does the term 'water supply resilience mean to me?
I think that water supply resilience means two things:
1. Delivering high quality, clean water regardless of the everyday and prevailing challenges faced, such as reduced rainfall both failing to replenish reservoirs and aquifers, and increasing demand for water; high temperatures increasing demand for water and evaporating water from reservoirs; high temperatures increasing the bacterial load of water in rivers and reservoirs; exhaustion of reservoirs and aquifers due to housing and industrial development.
2. The ability (both planning and infrastructure/resource potential) to absorb shocks to the water supply system, such as a major contamination incident (e.g. Camelford); a weather or climate-related event (e.g. extreme temperature, flooding, a change in rainfall distribution); a pandemic even more serious than the current one, preventing water company employees from working; insurrection or a total collapse in the economy (so that water company employees can no longer be paid); or some other event that is not part of the everyday.
