Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1062770
www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | JANUARY 2019 | 15 • IDEAS IN PRACTICE M any aspects of resilience in the round are already being put into practice with impressive effect. In May, United Utilities CEO Steve Mogford said he believed the company's systems thinking approach was setting "a new performance frontier" in the industry, suggesting it could be "five years ahead of the rest of the sector". The approach was central to United Utilities having sufficient water to meet demand across the whole of the region throughout the Beast from the East. "We try to use the data we have to predict what's going to happen," Boyland says. "Rather than waiting for problems to occur and reacting, you're taking things like weather forecasts and modelling what impact that would have on the systems, then getting your response-and-recovery mode up and running ahead of the event occurring. "You could predict there was going to be a freeze-thaw – exactly when it was going to be might be uncertain, but you get yourself ready and prepared, get your service reservoirs topped up, get your tankers ready to go so that, once it did hit, the impact on customers was minimised." In August, United Utilities was also able to call off a planned hosepipe ban, which it put down to a combination of recent rainfall and reduction in demand but also measures the company had taken, including fixing leaks, managing water in the network and making operational interventions such as the installation of new pumping stations, pumping between reservoirs and bringing ground water sources into use. "Water resource management is probably the area that was most advanced in terms of that systems thinking approach because we already had quite effective resource modelling," Boyland says. "What's developed even further is the more localised planning – peak demands are similar in a drought situation to in a freeze-thaw situation – and making sure we have local supplies that can sustain us through that period." Elsewhere, Welsh Water has NEXT STEPS Delivering resilient services in AMP7 and beyond will require efforts on a range of issues, not least clean water, where the Government's recent dra National Policy Statement talks up the potential need for new reservoirs, more water transfers, desalination and water reuse, offering guidance on planning decisions for water resources infrastructure of national significance. Bishop, who leaves Ofwat for a new role as organisational development director at Water Resources in the South East (WRSE) in January, feels the industry is not in a bad place with regard to drought resilience but that there is room for improvement on the "coordination between companies and at a national and super-regional scale". Climate change will demand more of wastewater resilience too, which also impels the companies to liaise with wider stakeholders. Ofwat has challenged companies to ingrain that sort of big-picture thinking into every aspect of their resilience approach and, while many are still trying to find their way, there are signs that others are already en route to success. "I think there's a mixed level of maturity, but there's some really, really good thinking across the industry, and companies are trying to make resilience in the round business as usual," Arup's Gray says. "There's some phenomenal innovation that's gone on already in some of the companies in terms of building a resilient future if you think about the catchment thinking, working with stakeholders, the innovation work Anglian Water has done, for example. "It's a mixed maturity level, but all the companies we've spoken to are moving in the right direction and keen to embrace this going forward." implemented some of the other key elements of resilience through its RainScape approach as well as the Greener Grangetown project, which have blazed trails in delivering effective sustainable urban drainage (SuDS) work in Britain. Arup served as consultant on the RainScape project, and Gray says that type of SuDS work is a prime example of a longer-term, multi-stakeholder approach that addresses shocks and stresses in a way that has multiple benefits.