Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/801555
In the know Digging deeper: resilience 36 | APRIL 2017 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk missing horseshoe nail is unfeasible. However, if we consider that the principal threat in the proverb was a vulnerability to communication system failure (it was the message not getting through which was the real problem) then undertaking a systematic review of such threats becomes more manageable. For water companies to demonstrate that their assessments have resulted in a clear and systematic understanding of resilience, they should at the very least be able to present a clearly articulated set of principal threats to service which the company has identified and against which it has carried out some level of systematic assessment. Those principal threats to service might include loss of communications or power, critical asset failure, flooding, extreme weather, contamination or deterioration in raw water quality, loss of hydraulic or process headroom, or the availability of skills or resources. The mechanism through which they are assessed may vary, but in many cases it will rely heavily on eliciting the knowledge of those who operate and maintain assets and asset systems. Their insights into potential service failures, and their awareness of the scale and frequency of operational interventions required to avert them, is rarely amenable to capturing in models, manuals or databases. Accepting that many of the resilience risks so identified may have significant uncertainty as to likelihood and precise scale of impact, water companies will nevertheless need an effective decision making framework which allows them to identify thresholds for action, what the timescale for action should be and what is an acceptable balance of expenditure versus risk reduction. Proportionate investment In the context of water industry service resilience, rather like the ALARP approach in health and safety risk management (where the objective is to reduce the risk to a level which would be considered 'as low as reasonably practicable') investment should not be disproportionate to the risk it is seeking to reduce. But there are no agreed, simple ratios or formulae which allow 'disproportionate' to be readily defined. The judgement as to what is proportionate must inevitably incorporate the customers' priorities and their willingness to accept that should a future service disruption arise, the steps taken by the company to reduce their vulnerability to such disruption had been sufficient both in terms of scale and timing. Customers' tolerance of service disruption is likely to be sensitive to their perceptions of water company control or culpability for that disruption. For example, customers may be more tolerant of disruption following widespread power failures or flooding than they would be if a similar scale of disruption followed failure of a poorly monitored or maintained asset. The extent to which companies can elicit or reasonably infer such complex and subtle preferences from their customer engagement activities will be key to the success of any resilience-driven investment cases. The aspiration of making water and wastewater services more resilient certainly is supported within the water industry. Those who work in the industry recognise the importance of the services which they provide to the wellbeing and prosperity of society and understand that they are stewards of systems which must be passed on to future generations in robust health. The regulatory focus on resilience will be welcomed by many as an opportunity to support long-term thinking in the sector. But we shouldn't be under any illusions that achieving that objective whilst balancing all the other competing pressures on the industry will be easy. About the author: Brendan McAndrew is a water industry consultant with 30 years' experience, delivering client-focused, consultancy services to UK and international water service providers. Hear more about resilience in a dedicated session at WWT's Water Industry Asset Management Conference in Birmingham on May 10th. Details: events.wwtonline.co.uk/asset