Climate Change and Water and Sanitation Utilities
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that water is the primary medium through which climate change will influence the Earth’s ecosystems and, thus, human livelihoods and well-being. It concluded that “water and its availability and quality, will be the main pressures on, and issues for, societies and the environment under climate change”. The current and predicted impacts of climate change and global temperature rise include floods, droughts, sea level rise, heatwaves, violent storms, diminishing glaciers and snowpack, drastically disturbing global water cycles and impacting water quality and availability.
These impacts are often exacerbated by other water stressors occurring in parallel, including population growth, land-use change and increasing per capita water demand, leading to further over-extraction and pollution of freshwater reserves. This cascading effect of climate change and urbanisation on water systems poses significant risks to biodiversity, agriculture, urban water supply, and overall human health and livelihoods, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable water management and climate adaptation strategies.
Considering that two-thirds of the world's largest cities are in areas at risk from the effects of climate change, there is an urgent need for urban water service providers to enhance their water resource management and improve the resilience of their infrastructure. Diversifying water sources is becoming essential, whether by building new storage systems, extracting groundwater responsibly, engaging in water trading, conserving resources, or utilising recycled or desalinated water.
As governments strive to reduce emissions, there is also an increasing impetus for water utilities to transform their operations to mitigate climate change. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) found that water and wastewater use, storage, distribution and treatment collectively contribute around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, the Victorian Government in Australia found that around a quarter of their emissions are from the water sector. Energy use from water and wastewater systems accounts for about 4% of the international electricity consumption and is expected to double by 2040. Furthermore, wastewater treatment can generate methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, with a much stronger global warming potential than CO2. Interventions are needed to mitigate these emissions, improve utilities' energy efficiency, and introduce upgraded treatment technologies that align with national emissions reduction strategies.
Water and sanitation utilities worldwide face the enormous task of building resilience and adapting to and mitigating climate change. However, even without climate change, urban water utilities face operational stresses - market shifts, privatisation, increasing competition, technological innovation, and changing consumer behaviour, which pose significant challenges for maintaining a high level of service. Those in developing countries cope with fundamental issues of water management and service delivery, while in the developed world, they face the challenge of repairing or replacing ageing infrastructure. Dealing with a host of pressing short-term issues often hinders a utility’s ability to plan for future impacts associated with climate change.
Infrastructure designed using historical rainfall data is more vulnerable to future weather extremes and climate change. Unpredictable rainfall patterns and service disruptions are often met with unpopular demand management strategies like rationing and service interruptions, which decrease revenues and increase operation costs. As a result, planning for dealing with climate-related issues has not been effectively coordinated nor based on sound principles of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). While improvements do get made to existing systems, more comprehensive planning is needed to address the long-term economic, social, and environmental impacts of climate change.
Unification, solidarity, and collaboration are needed to face the multifaceted challenges of climate change. UN-Habitat’s Global Water Operators` Partnership Alliance establishes a global network of partnerships between water and sanitation utilities, where sharing knowledge, resources, and expertise can enhance the resilience of utilities to the impacts of climate change.