Abstract
Abstract There is limited information about the current state of intermittent water supply (IWS) systems at the global level. A survey was carried out by the Intermittent Water Supply Specialist Group of the International Water Association (IWA IWS SG) to better understand the current state of these systems and challenges that water companies may have faced under COVID-19 pandemic and to capture successful management strategies applied by water utilities. The survey consisted of three parts: (1) general information about IWS systems, (2) current state of IWS and (3) resilience of IWS under COVID-19 conditions, as well as some questions about potential interventions in order to improve system performance in general and under future uncertain conditions. The survey responses were evaluated based on the Safe & SuRe resilience framework, assessing measures of mitigation, adaptation, coping and learning, and exploring organisational and operational responses of IWS utilities. Infrastructure capacity and water resources availability were identified as the main causes of intermittency in most water distribution systems, while intermittent electricity was considered as the main external cause. Participants indicated that some risk assessment process was in place; however, COVID-19 has surpassed any provisions made to address the risks. Lessons learnt highlighted the importance of financial resources, e-infrastructure for efficient system operation and communication with consumers, and the critical role of international knowledge transfer and the sharing of best practice guidelines for improving resilience and transitioning towards continuous water supply.
Highlights
About 2.2 billion people worldwide lack access to safely managed drinking water (WHO/UNICEF )
Part 2 – Current state of intermittent water supply (IWS) What is the state of IWS in your country? What are the main causes of intermittency in your country? What type of IWS does your organisation deal with? What type of issues were you dealing with in your operation of IWS system prior to COVID-19? Are there any plans in place to convert the system into continuous supply?
The participants have suggested that knowledge transfer and learning from best practice is a requirement in order to make progress in improving or converting these systems from intermittent to continuous supply
Summary
About 2.2 billion people worldwide lack access to safely managed drinking water (WHO/UNICEF ). This includes 1.3 billion with intermittent access (Charalambous & Laspidou ). An intermittent water supply (IWS) system is defined as a piped water supply, which exposes some or all consumers to times without water supply on a regular basis These systems can be found in South Asia, Latin America (Vairavamoorthy et al ) and Africa (WHO & UNICEF ). There are different reasons why utilities may consider operating the water infrastructure under these conditions These may include natural, technical and financial scarcity as well as user behaviour (Totsuka et al ; Galaitsi et al ; Simukonda et al a; Taylor et al ). Operating water systems intermittently have a great deal of negative consequences for utilities, consumers and society at large including: rapid asset deterioration, more leaks and bursts (Klingel ), water quality issues (Kumpel & Nelson ), loss of income for utilities, inequity (Gullotta et al ), financial burden for consumers (Burt et al ) and public health (Ercumen et al ; Bivins et al )
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