It identifies two fundamental areas of reform: improving institutional accountability and strengthening financial viability. The first involves: reforming institutional arrangements, policies, and regulations; sector planning, utility management, capacity, and skills; and creating the framework for private investment. The second requires the strengthening of cost recovery, commercial viability, and operational efficiency.

The report compares the effectiveness of Development Policy Operations (DPOs) and Investment Project Financing (IPFs) instruments across selected financial viability targets. It identifies lessons for each sector and cross-cutting lessons for both energy and water operations, centred on promoting financial and operational discipline (regardless of private or public ownership), and institutional governance and accountability.

The document notes that recovering cost of service is at the core of sector reform, and that the operational efficiency of service providers is crucial to their financial viability.

Case studies examined include radical changes to the corporate management approach and work culture in Peru’s Sedapal utility, and the well-known work by the Ho Chi Minh City water utility in Vietnam to reduce water losses.

Overall, both DPOs and IPFs, the bank’s main instruments, were found to adequately identify sector financial performance drivers, and were comparably successful across selected financial viability targets, with two notable differences.

IPFs were found to perform better than DPOs on improving overall utility financial performance, but DPOs were found to be better at influencing tariff adjustment.

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The study warns that the city could be without water for up to two months after a major earthquake, and that restoring pre-earthquake reliability and service levels could take years.

In recent years, new facts have been discovered about the Seattle fault zone (SFZ) and the Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) earthquakes that were not realised at the time of 1990 studies.

The new analysis evaluated the water system for a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on the SFZ and a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on the offshore CSZ. Facilities were also evaluated for ground shaking levels roughly equal to those in the Seattle building code.

Performance and goal-based approaches were used to establish short-and long-term strategies to help ensure service to customers after a seismic event.

The study advocated a funding strategy with progressive investment over time, recommending targeting short-term investment for the higher-risk areas of the system, while planning longer-term investment for upgrades.

It suggests that the city should spend $850m to 2075 to mitigate risks posed by a large earthquake.

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Drinkwell (Dhaka, Bangladesh), Microlyze (Denver, USA) and SmartTerra (Bengaluru, India) beat 160 start-ups from 30 countries on the basis of commercial viability, impact and market readiness, and their ability to merge technology with innovative business models.

“Over the next three decades, projected demand for water in cities such as London, Rio de Janeiro and Beijing will increase by 70 percent, resulting in more scenarios similar to that of Cape Town,” said Anders Jacobson, Bluewater President and Chief Strategy Officer. “This competition unlocks the resources to validate and scale three promising solutions that prove the benefits of smarter water management in the face of rapid urbanisation and looming drinking water shortages.”

The Challenge’s Founding Partners, water tech leader Bluewater Group and oceans stewardship initiative 11th Hour Racing, have committed up to US$1,000,000 in cash prizes, pilot funding awards and investment to deploy and scale decentralised and data-driven solutions in water scarce cities.

The award funding will enable each start-up to launch a new deployment in a water-scarce city.

Drinkwell is expanding its turnkey decentralised water purification systems across arsenic-contaminated communities in Bangladesh, focusing on the three million people in Dhaka who live in low-income communities, and are often given no choice but to drink from unsafe, illegal water sources.

Microlyze is deploying real-time water testing devices to empower households and provide cost-effective monitoring for US utilities, helping protect the estimated 22 million Americans exposed to lead and other contaminants through their water. often due to ageing infrastructure in cities.

Ari Kaufman, CEO and founder of Microlyze, said that being named as a winner is now giving his company the opportunity to put money towards pilots in Chicago and Cleveland, as well as the company’s original pilot in Denver.

SmartTerra is equipping second-tier Indian cities with the tools for data-driven decision-making and operations to improve delivery and access for the underserved. Growth in these cities outpaces infrastructure improvements, leaving water supplies unequal and large segments of the population without safe and reliable access.

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The City of Trenton has paid a US$13,000 fine to the state of New Jersey as part of a plan to address its services after lead was detected in the city’s water supply. According to local press, mayor Reed Gusciora’s sign-off on the agreement coincided within a week of his attendance to a meeting set up by ex-mayor Doug Palmer, where they discussed ways to improve water quality.

The two men also spoke the mayor of Flint, Michigan, a city that mired in one of the United State’s worst water crises in recent years.

Test results showed elevated levels of the metal in 12 of 100 water samples taken in the first six months of 2018, according to local city reports. But the agreement made by the city’s mayor and the agency identified several problems with its service, in particular the levels of lead found in the city’s drinking water.

A report outlining the terms of the agreement stated that the city and the agency must follow strict guidelines in order to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“The document requires [Trenton Water Works] to submit a new corrosion control treatment project plan, complete a lead service line replacement project, and comply with regular monitoring for lead and copper lines, as well as water quality,” it states.

Trenton’s failure to avert the risk of lead seeping into water through aged pipes was flagged earlier this year by New Jersey’s head environmental regulator and commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Bob Martin.

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The cities’ municipal water supplies have been affected by drought and a rise in salinity since December 2017. On 1 July, people took the streets in protests that sparked violent clashes with police forces involving gunfire that left more than 11 injured.

“Although Iran has a history of drought, over the last decade, it has experienced its most prolonged, extensive and severe drought in over 30 years,” the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations agency, said in a recent report.

At the root of the problem lies broken water pipe infrastructure made worse by high temperatures. This has forced provincial water firm to source water from the Persian Gulf, a location fast becoming the cities’ only remaining water supply. Residents have complained that the water gives off an obnoxious odour, making it undrinkable.

The proposed resolution would involve instead transferring water from the Dez Dam to the Karkheh Dam close to Iran’s western border with Iraq.

Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said this course of action would adhere to the framework of the Ghadir water project. The project was launched eight years ago to address the problem of a water shortage the surrounding regions of Khuzestan.

Iran has faced drought for more than 15 years through declining rainfall, rising temperatures and ineffective farming practices. Though recent protests concern the lack of access to clean water among urban residents, excessive consumption in cities as well as poor management of resources has been simultaneously linked to the national shortage.

Khuzestan governor-general, Gholamreza Shariati, has said bottled water continues to be provided to residents.

As well as agricultural practices, government officials have blamed the shortage on increased salinity caused by the rise in sea levels along the Persian Gulf.

Energy officials estimate Iran’s annual water deficit at about 5.7 billion cubic metres.

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This follows an investigation by the UK’s water watchdog, Ofwat, which found that the utility’s board did not have sufficient oversight and control of the company’s leakage performance.

“High leakage creates unnecessary strain on the environment, excess costs for customers and increased risk of water shortages,” said Rachel Fletcher, Chief Executive, Ofwat. “A well-run water company will have a good understanding of the condition of its pipes and will be able to reduce leakage over time.”

The £65 million payment to customers is on top of £55 million in automatic penalties incurred by the company for missing the commitment it made to customers to cut leaks. Each customer will get a total rebate of approximately £15 over the next two years.

Ofwat has set all water companies a target of bringing down leakage by at least another 15 percent up to 2025 and expects further reductions beyond this date.

“We met our leakage targets for a decade but our recent performance has not been good enough,” explained Steve Robertson, CEO, Thames Water. “We let our customers down and for that we’re sorry. We have taken more control of how we manage the network and are investing significantly more in people and resources to tackle leakage, get back on track and then go beyond.”

As part of the proposed settlement, the company has committed to getting its leakage performance back in line with what it has promised it will deliver for its customers in 2019-20. It will also publish its performance each month in tackling leaks, appoint an independent monitor to certify the information in its monthly leakage reports, and do more to engage with customers on leakage issues–including at its board.

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Premier David Makhura announced the plan last week to officials at a forum for South African provincial governments and municipalities.

“The Gauteng City Region (GCR) is very vulnerable with regards to facing a water crisis and this is due to our location, the type of economy we run, and the number of people we attract,” he said, adding:

“We need to agree on setting up a water war room that will be made up of representatives from the provincial government and local government.”

The province continues to transform from wetlands used to graze livestock into an urban economic hub. It is the smallest region South Africa, making up only 1.5 percent of the total land, yet contains the country’s biggest city, Johannesburg. Its growing population (around 13.7 million people) is placing increasing pressure on its water supply, with recommended litres per person recently lowered from 347 to 287.

In the announcement, Makhura cited research showing that while Gauteng uses just 11 percent of the country’s water, it contributes some 38 percent of its resources to the national economy. In a State of Province Address in February earlier in the year, Makhura said the supply of both water and energy were “the most urgent and pressing challenge for the Gauteng City Region”.

“We need to harness new technologies to address a range of issues, such as water treatment, waste water management and sanitation, rainwater harvesting and aging infrastructure which leads to huge water losses,” he said.

The volume of water needed to sustain the province is unlikely to be met within the next seven years, according to water experts present at the recent forum. They urged Makhura to invest in infrastructure capable of ensuring the region has additional storage for water no longer stored naturally in the ground.

Makhura did not say whether the war room plans would introduce commercial parties to discussion of how to manage the region’s resources, though said it would be made up of a “political and technical component, which will be used to identify trends and respond to those”.

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Titled, The Reuse Opportunity: Cities seizing the reuse opportunity in circular economy, the report says that as cities are drivers of the global economy, they must lead the large-scale action needed to increase wastewater treatment, reuse and recycling.

“The global market for wastewater recycling and reuse reached nearly US$12.2 billion in 2016 and is estimated to reach US$22.3 billion by 2021,” said Professor Kala Vairavamoorthy, Executive Director, IWA. “This market expansion is in response to a growing demand from cities and industry for water against a backdrop of increased urbanisation, population growth and climate variability, the result of which is greater water scarcity at a time of increasing global demand. Wastewater management as a resource is a critical solution to these challenges.”

IWA figures reveal that around 80 percent of all wastewater is discharged untreated into rivers, lakes and oceans, creating health and environmental hazards, and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, including nitrous oxide and methane. The emissions are three times larger than those produced by conventional wastewater treatment activities.

The report focuses on eight cities, all facing different water and wastewater challenges and which are developing different solutions to address them with the potential to be applied in other cities.

“This report illustrates both the global wastewater challenge, and the reuse opportunity in eight cities,” said Suleiman J Al-Herbish, Director General, OFID. “These are all cities in low- or middle-income countries where future challenges will be more acute and the need for change is urgent. The report presents city roadmaps and identifies priorities–as well as the benefits–of meeting the Sustainable Development Goal target of halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse by 2030.”

The eight cities are:

Aqaba, Jordan: A mid-size city turning its ‘zero discharge’ challenge into an opportunity;

Bangkok, Thailand: Using wastewater as a resource and a valuable economic good;

Beijing, China: Building infrastructure to keep up with an ever-expanding mega city;

Chennai, India: Addressing water scarcity through accelerated wastewater reuse;

Durban, South Africa: Treating wastewater as an economic good;

Kampala, Uganda: Protecting its water source with an integrated plan to control, treat and reuse wastewater;

Lima, Peru: Learning by doing under the urgency of shrinking glaciers;

Manila, Philippines: A mega city regenerating resources through wastewater treatment and reuse.

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Amman, Cape Town, Mexico City, Greater Miami and the Beaches, and Hull were selected because they represent the range of water challenges facing cities around the world. With the exception of Hull, each city is a member of 100 Resilient Cities–pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation.

“More than 60 percent of the applicants to 100 Resilient Cities identified water as a chief risk–either having too much or too little of it,” Andrew Salkin, Senior Vice President of City Solutions at 100 Resilient Cities, told The Source. “We’ve seen the extreme disruption that can accompany a city’s operations. Adding a resilience lens to water management is therefore an essential component of addressing chronic stresses and/or quickly responding to acute shocks. Resilience thinking keeps large threats like hurricanes or sea level rise in mind when planning, zoning, and investing on an ongoing basis.”

The cities were selected because of their diversity in terms of population size, geographic location and economic status, as well as their commitment to taking a strategic approach to resilience.

As part of this partnership, the project will explore each city’s specific water concerns through field research and stakeholder interviews. Data and findings will be used to establish qualitative and quantitative indicators to measure city water resilience, for use in any city anywhere. The resulting City Water Resilience Framework will be a global standard for water resilience, which enables cities to diagnose challenges related to water and utilise that information to inform planning and investment decisions.

“A changing climate coupled with rapid urbanisation is increasing the frequency of water related crises facing cities,” said Mark Fletcher, Arup Global Water Leader. “Increasingly, unpredictable rainfall, flooding and droughts are impacting cities across their water cycle. By understanding a wide range of issues, being played out in different contexts, we will be able to help all cities to understand how to assess the risks they are facing, and how to prioritise action and investments to become more resilient.”

A steering group is overseeing the development framework with representatives from The Rockefeller Foundation, 100 Resilient Cities, the World Bank, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Alliance for Global Water Adaptation and The Resilience Shift.

“Having a global framework for water resilience means that any city facing similar challenges can tap into lessons learned and best practices proven effective around the world,” added Salkin. “A framework will allow cities to begin understanding their challenges and systems using a similar language and approach. It allows for common conversations, enabling cities to speak the same language, share ideas, and implement ideas more quickly.”

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