Understanding Urban Water Reliability Amid Changes in Supply and Demand

by | Sep 13, 2017

Drivers of the changing water supply and demand characteristics in the Bay Area, and opportunities to enhance future regional water reliability.

Changing climate, rapidly growing populations, and urbanization are stressing limited water resources and aging infrastructure in many parts of the world. Under pressure to identify more resilient supplies, water utilities are exploring the expansion of existing water supplies, the addition of new and more resilient sources, and a shift in approach to water demand and management. To navigate this shifting paradigm more effectively, water utilities need to consider social, economic, governance, and hydrologic realities. These factors can reveal opportunities tailored to local characteristics, and introduce much needed flexibility into traditionally centralized water systems.

The San Francisco Bay Area exemplifies many of the emerging challenges to water security. Decision-makers forecasting the region’s future water needs face uncertainties borne of the past decade’s severe drought and economic recession, as well as more recent population and wealth growth. In a recent focus article published in WIREs Water, Patricia Gonzales and Newsha Ajami of Stanford University discuss drivers of changing water supply and demand characteristics in the Bay Area, and opportunities to enhance future regional water reliability.

The authors look at recent historical demographic, economic, hydrologic, social and environmental data in a subset of water utilities. They find that diverse characteristics of each utility present opportunities that may not be apparent when looking at the Bay Area more broadly. For example, it may be more feasible to introduce alternative water supplies in some utilities than in others, such as tailoring recycled water to the commercial sector or continuing conservation efforts in areas where it is most cost-effective, small strategies that can add up to significant regional benefits. Furthermore, given the regional scale and potential economic impacts of water shortages, as well as utilities’ common dependence on imported and groundwater supplies, there is an incentive for utilities to leverage their local opportunities while working with neighboring communities to coordinate regional efforts.

The Bay Area is not unique in dealing with growing uncertainties under changing water supply and demand dynamics. Even though traditional water management approaches consider a suite of hydro-economic factors for decision-making, these are typically based on top-down assessments that may be inadequate to represent the diverse characteristics of the communities involved. For example, traditional approaches have focused on large infrastructure projects that incur large costs and are not as easily adaptable to changing water supply and demand conditions at the local level over time.

Gonzales and Ajami lay out a framework for assessment and identification of opportunities from a bottom-up perspective. Water utilities can benefit from this perspective as they tailor management solutions to local community values, governance dynamics, and economic realities. These dynamics play an important role in policymaking and the adaptation capacity of any region. Incorporating them in developing effective management strategies at local and regional scales can enhance the reliability, flexibility and resiliency of the complex water system as a whole.

Kindly contributed by Newsha K Ajami.

 

 

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