Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | XXXX 20XX | 13 • A ROUNDED CONCEPT O fwat wants companies to be prepared for all potential threats to service delivery – which could mean anything from drought and flooding to Brexit and skills challenges to cyber-attacks – and to understand how they link together. "Resilience is all about planning in combination, understanding the interdependability between different systems and making sure they're taken into account in an appropriate way," says Trevor Bishop, who has worked as Ofwat's director for strategy and planning on secondment from the Environment Agency for the last two years. However, the regulator stressed that its guidance report was "not a 'rule book' for companies to follow" but merely "food for thought as they develop their own innovative ideas and solutions for resilience". As Ofwat director John Russell wrote in his foreword: "There are, so far, few solid examples of a truly joined-up approach to resilience." Yet while not every company will have developed a fully rounded approach at this stage, Ofwat clearly expects that they should have positioned themselves to do so. "We've set the bar high for all companies in PR19," Bishop says. "However, we recognise this will continue to evolve and develop, so PR19 is definitely not the end of a journey." Ofwat has offered indications of some of the aspects that should make up resilience in the round, including a heavy focus on customers and the environment, forward- looking metrics and smart systems. One major element is 'systems thinking'. Ofwat cited the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) global network as an example of the approach it wants to see, where 'shocks' such as superstorms, blackouts and heatwaves are considered alongside the more everyday 'stresses' that weaken cities' resilience, like ageing infrastructure, public transportation, unemployment and inequality. Arup worked alongside the Rockefeller Foundation on both 100RC and the City Resilience Index (CRI), and they are currently working together on a City Water Resilience Framework (CWRF). The global consultancy firm has also helped a wide range of UK water companies to understand how they can implement those lessons in AMP7 and beyond. "One of the key facets that we identified with the CRI was the qualities of a resilient system – a system that is resilient will be reflective, resourceful, inclusive, integrated, robust, redundant and flexible," Arup associate Ann Cousins says. "That underpinned our approach in moving from the city perspective to the utility perspective. "One of the really important things to think about is we're not just talking about mitigating a single shock or stress. In becoming more resilient, a water company is not just resilient to a flood event or climate change but should be resilient when facing the kind of future uncertainty that's increasingly important in the world we live in today." There is much the water sector can learn from the cities. Companies need to adopt a forward-looking approach that considers the future scenarios that could impact on their operations, while there is a need for greater levels of collaboration, both within the industry and beyond. For example, wastewater resilience – one of the many areas Ofwat expects to see developed further in AMP7 – can only be effectively approached by considering the big picture. "In the work of the 21st Century Drainage Board, it is great to see the proactive approach to partnership working and the recognition that wastewater and drainage are www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | JANUARY 2019 | 13 intrinsically linked to other systems," Bishop says. "There's very strong links between the roles of water companies and those of other organisations such as highway agencies, drainage boards related to surface water flooding and the Environment Agency on fluvial flooding, and the activities of water companies on ingress into their systems and the way that all interacts. There's a real mix of responsibilities and accountabilities." Arup's water advisory lead, Ian Gray, says multi-stakeholder engagement was a major lesson from the work on the CRI and 100RC, which has led to Arup working with others to develop the WaterShare tool to promote collaborative, resilient water governance. "Working together to solve the challenge or take an opportunity was much more effective than individuals sorting a problem out from their own perspective," Gray says. "That integrated thinking was key." While linking operational, financial and corporate resilience may not be second nature for most companies, Arup believes it is already achievable. Using the methodology developed for PR19, Arup worked with numerous companies to provide an understanding of the maturity of their resilience plans, and Gray says the process itself helped many to adopt a more rounded approach. "Ofwat is asking for long-term financial planning, for example, but there was a bit of pushback from some of the finance people at companies who felt short-term planning was the most robust approach because the future's so uncertain," he says. Arup emphasised the benefits of reviewing financial plans on a regular basis and making changes where shocks and stresses may occur. "We got some really good change in thinking and connectivity," he adds. • RESILIENCE DEFINITIONS Ofwat's definition of resilience in the round incorporates: • Corporate resilience: The ability of an organisation's governance, accountability and assurance processes to help avoid, cope with and recover from disruption of all types; and to anticipate trends and variability in its business operations • Financial resilience: An organisation's ability to avoid, cope with and recover from disruption to its finances • Operational resilience: The ability of an organisation's infrastructure, and the skills to run that infrastructure, to avoid, cope with and recover from disruption in its performance The 4Rs of resilience as defined by the Cabinet Office: • Resistance: Concerns direct physical protection, e.g. the erection of flood defences • Reliability: The capability of infrastructure to maintain operations under a range of conditions, e.g. electrical cabling is able to operate in extremes of heat and cold • Redundancy: The adaptability of an asset or network, e.g. the installation of back–up data centres • Response and Recovery: An organisation's ability to respond to and recover from disruption