Water Safety Plans & Catchment Management

1. Water Safety Plans& Catchment Management

3. What is a WSP? • A way to ensure safe drinking-water by: • Knowing the system thoroughly • Identifying where and how problems could arise • Multibarrier approach - Putting barriers and management systems in place to stop the problems before they happen • Making sure all parts of the system work properly • A comprehensive risk assessment and risk management approach that encompasses all steps in water supply from catchment to consumer • Fits within a framework for safe drinking-water

4. National Government Regulators Health Regional or local Government • Focus is on Water Supplier Catchment managers Community & consumer groups Water supplier CONSUMERS Raw water catchment Local builders, plumbers & water fittings suppliers National/regional water associations Catchment Users National associations dealing with builders, plumbers, retailers & manufacturers

5. Overview of Water Safety Plans Revise WSP following incident (Module 11) Assemble team (Module 1) Describe the water supply system (Module 2) Identify the hazards & assess the risks (Module 3) Plan & carry out periodic WSP review (Module 10) incident Preparation Determine & validate control measures, reassess & prioritize risks (Module 4) System assessment Develop supporting programmes (Module 9) Monitoring Management & communication Develop, implement & maintain an improvement plan (Module 5) Feedback Prepare management procedures (Module 8) Verify the effectiveness of the WSP (Module 7) Define monitoring of control measures (Module 6)

6. WSPs AND Catchment Management • Part of WSP process is identifying hazards and assessing risk • Identify all hazardous events that could contaminate, compromise or interrupt supply • Identify all potential hazards in supply chain (from source to tap) • Evaluate the risks associated with each hazard/hazardous event • Examples • Heavy rainfall (hazardous event) may promote the introduction of microbial pathogens (hazards) into the source water • Flooding can result in damaged infrastructure • Drought can compromise water supply and water quality

7. Emphasis on treatment for water quality Water utilities range of control Cost Barriers / Control Measures Catchment Treatment Distribution Consumers

8. Better catchment management • Catchment management improves water supply downstream (quantity and quality) • Increase source water quality – OR – ensure source water quality does not deteriorate • Decrease intensity of treatment processes – reduce costs (chemicals, energ) • Decrease the necessity to seek new water resources (time and money) • Decrease water quality variance – more predictable quality • Understanding flood and drought hazards enables better planning for infrastructure investment (e.g. storage and networks), risk mitigation measures (e.g. urban storage and drainage)

9. Linking catchment Management and WSP Identify key catchment stakeholders Verify effectiveness of catchment controls Map and characterise catchments Develop catchment partnerships Promote catchment risk mitigate measures Identify hazards and hazardous activities Flood and drought information is needed Develop catchment warning and response procedures Assess risks which could compromise treated water quality Implement risk based raw water monitoring Balance between need for enhanced treatment and likely effectiveness of catchment controls Assess need for improved treatment to reduce risk

10. Catchment partnerships Policy and Legislation National / regional level Water Associations Water Associations Water Associations Local implementation Catchment managers Catchment ‘users’ Water Supplier Catchment Level

11. Development of tools to incorporate impacts of climatic variability and change, in particular floods and drought, into basin planning processes

12. Project rationale • Climatic variability and change is increasing in the form of more frequent, severe and less predictable floods and droughts • Growing sense of urgency among countries, basin organizations and other end users such as utilities to build resilience towards floods and droughts • Risks related to hydrologic uncertainty is magnified in transboundary contexts, where cooperation among countries is essential to any coping strategy.

13. Project Background • Initiated by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) secretariat and UNEP to look at methodologies for addressing extreme weather events • Partners – IWA, DHI and UNEP • DHI – expertise on development of tools for water managemnet • IWA – engaging with key end users (especially utilities) to develop and test methodology • GEF needs to develop a tool to better address floods and drought issues in its portfolio • more than 50 IWRM-related projects in 30 lake and river basins throughout the world. • GEF projects have shown flood and droughts to be a priority transboundary concern, along with the other multiple drivers that cause depletion and degradation

14. Project Goal • The project aims at contributing to the global efforts being made to maintain acceptable levels of societal and ecosystem sustainability vis-a-vis growing climatic uncertainty and unpredictability. Project Objective • Improve the ability of land, water and urban area managers operating in transboundary river basins to recognize and address, as part of the TDA-SAP, IWRM plans and water safety plans processes, the implications of the increased frequency, magnitude and unpredictability of flood and drought events

15. Overall project design

16. Project outputs • Developing a generic methodology for basins, which uses tools and decision support systems that integrate information on floods and droughts to: • Transboundary Diagnostic Analyses and Strategic Action Plans • IWRM and Water safety plans. • Based on an assessment of present approaches, and developed through consultation with stakeholders • Combination of learning and pilot transboundary basin

17. Basins • Pilot Basins – Direct testing of generic methodology to incorporate floods and droughts into planning • Lake Victoria, Volta, Chao Phraya • Learning Basins – Consultations to understand how DSS are being applied and used in planning and what can be improved • Danube • Identify main water management issues and use these as a starting point for discussion • Opportunity to take stock of how the basin is managing flood events, what are the gaps and what can be developed in the future

19. What is thE“methodology”? • Most advanced commercially available Decision Support Systems (DSS) combine databases, models, GIS and web technologies with configurable decision logics. • Information is processed in such a way to produce various scenarios to make informed decisions • Project will develop open access modules to allow the integration of flood and drought elements and of likely climatic scenarios into more commonly used DSSs, and apply them to IWRM planning, to the TDA process, and to WSPs.

20. Stakeholder Engagement • Emphasis is to be placed on the management of floods and droughts affecting urban and industrial areas that are the centers of economic growth, assets and wealth creation. • Links with utilities and WSPs that incorporate catchment management • WSP will complement wider basin planning and provide in depth engagement with end users • Provides opportunity for awareness raising on river basin management benefits at local level (urban and industrial)

21. Discussion Risks and Hazards • What specific risks and hazards around floods and droughts, have you encountered which you would like to include in planning processes? • What kind of information do you currently gather around floods and droughts (quantitative and qualitative) in the TDA/SAP process? Decision support systems • What type of decision support tools (especially for floods and droughts) are you familiar with? How are using them? • What type of outputs do you use or are you looking for from a DSS which focuses on floods and droughts? How would use information from a DSS in a TDA process and planning? Stakeholder engagement • How do you engage with other stakeholders at local level (e.g industries, utilities, etc)?