RESILIENT WATER SECTOR

Making More Efficient Use of Water Resources

Activities:

Improve the water storage infrastructure, both for untreated and treated water at the national and district levels;
Provide incentives to encourage investments by households and businesses in increased water storage at the domestic and commercial levels.
Effectively manage recycled wastewater and water from other sources such as rainwater and untreated surface water, including promoting its use as a resource in sectors such as tourism (landscape irrigation) and agriculture (irrigation and fertilizer).
Climate-proof water storage, treatment and distribution infrastructure to better withstand the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events.

Activities:

Reduce levels of non-revenue water (NRW), through a comprehensive program to repair and replace damaged or aging infrastructure, metering of water supplies and measures to reduce theft of water.
Establish appropriate incentives that encourage water use efficiency and sanctions that penalize inefficient or unhelpful behaviour.

Activities:

Develop a watershed management program that includes restoration of forest cover, establishment of new forest cover where needed to help improve the integrity of watersheds and assist with slope stabilization, and establishment of buffer protection areas.
Reduce the sources of pollution of water sources, through enactment, where necessary, and enforcement of legislation and rigorous public education.
Involve communities as active players in watershed protection, given the key role that local communities and small farmers play in the management of watershed ecosystems.
Establish riparian buffers, wherever possible, along major rivers and waterways to help reduce soil erosion, improve river bank stability and minimize the entry of sediments and contaminants into the river.

Activities:

Develop data and information management protocols for a National Decision Support System for the water sector to set out the processes and procedures for data collection, storage, analysis and dissemination, archive and disposal within the DSS.
Develop a monitoring system for data collection and integrate this within the DSS. Deploy instrumentation and equipment for data collection on sea level rise, stream flow, flood mapping and wastewater. Include collection of satellite data and LiDAR. This will provide an evidence base to determine the existing and potential future impacts of climate change on the water sector.
Develop accurate models to predict the impacts of extreme weather events and slow onset events, including sea level rise, on the water sector.
Map water supply system assets, undertake hydraulic modeling of the supply network and modeling of water resources and use GIS to develop, manage and analyse the requisite datasets.

Activities:

Establish a periodic national water census to quantify and value water resources as part of the work program of the national statistics department.
Set standards and benchmarks to allow for accurate measurement of progress in relation to climate impacted variables (supply demand deficit, deployable output) and comparison with international best practice. Set standards for reduction in demand.
Institutionalize the production of an annual, national State of the Water Sector Report as a joint undertaking by the government, the regulator and the water utility company. To inform policy makers, water users and the water utility about where investments need to be made to manage climate related risks
Develop a national level requirement for water resource management planning, which takes possible future development scenarios into account.
Establish and monitor operational resilience metrics (such as duration of service interruption, time to repair) as a first step toward agreement on Levels of Service. This will be important in estimating the ability of the water system to cope with climate variability and planning climate change adaptation options.
Establish standards and publish performance of WASCO in areas such as drinking water quality, frequency of service interruptions, energy footprint, domestic water demand, levels of non-revenue water.

Activities:

Implement energy efficiency measures to reduce energy use by WASCO.
Use cheaper renewable energy sources wherever possible to reduce operating costs and increase resilience.
Install back-up energy from renewable sources to reduce the duration of interruptions in the water supply after an extreme weather event.

Activities:

Identify the communities that are most vulnerable to disruptions in the supply of water after a natural disaster
Purchase Water Distribution trucks that are capable of transporting water to impacted communities after a disaster.
Purchase and keep in inventory an adequate number of water storage tanks that can be deployed in communities following a disaster and replenished to provide residents access to potable water in the aftermath of a disaster.

Activities:

Purchase a mobile solar-operated sea water reverse osmosis desalination unit that may be mobilized to produce potable water in the event of a major storm that prevents the treatment and distribution of water to communities by WASCO.