New Specialist Group on
Water Security and Safety Management
and the Major Consumer Initiative
Bruno NGUYEN
Urban Water Security Workshop:
Planning and Response to Ensure
Urban Water Resilience
Beijing - 2006 September 13
1/16
A new Specialist Group on W2SM
First years of the 21st century have been marked by several disasters of great
magnitude and diverse origins. What they all have in common is their damage to
water supply systems and direct impact on the population:
• destruction of the twin WTC towers in New-York,
• major flooding in eastern Europe,
• tsunami in Asia and Africa,
• earthquakes in Pakistan and India,
• pollution of a major river in China,
• hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi….
Long before the return to “normal life”, partial restoration of a “tolerable situation”
for the affected people greatly depends on the availability of safe drinking
water.
 In a crisis situation, the quality and level of preparedness make the difference
between chaos and an efficient response.
2/16
Security Management in the Water Supply:
Why ?
 Pressure drops or interruption of water distribution may
rapidly lead to sanitation problems and degradation of daily life;
fire fighting is also a major issue.
 Ingestion, contact or breathing of inappropriate water may
result in diseases and could cause death.
Whenever a drinking water supply service has suffered
interruption of distribution, or insufficient pressure, or bad water
quality:
Water utilities will be held responsible:
• for their lack of anticipation,
• for their lack of preparation,
• for their inappropriate or insufficient reaction.
3/16
Security Management in the Water Supply:
what risks?
• Water supply activity related risks:
pollutions, breaks, backflow…. « part of the job »
• Indirect risks as a result of interdependency:
interruption of power supply, communications, …
delivery failure of reagents,
transportation strikes…
• Natural Hazards:
depending on location and more or less predictable,
potentially high level of damages to the infrastructure.
• Health risks:
SRAS, Pandemic diseases.
• Terrorism:
in a dangerous world, water supply is a potential target.
4/16
About the Risks
• For natural hazards that have already been recorded in the past in
the same region, the question is not « IF », but « WHEN » it will
come again.
• The risks vary from immediate effect to longer time to fully
expand:
earthquakes = minutes
floods = days
droughts = weeks
man made threats = ?
• The concentration of human population and economic activity in
urban centers raises the level of risks.
5/16
Man made threats: what has changed ?
• Matters of security are now definitely part of the job.
• New relationships are being deployed between the water
utilities and the authorities.
• New challenges appear with new constraints but also
with new opportunities to improve the water supply
security.
6/16
Questions
• How can the water supplier be prepared against a situation he
has never met before ?
• Natural catastrophe or terrorist risk are beyond the water
utility’s grasp; we can’t protect against everything. What is the
limit ?
• What is the appropriate time scale to take into account for the
sizing of protection means?
• When does the involvement of the authorities starts ?
• Who is in charge with what ?
• What protection for what cost ?
• How the new technologies can help ?
7/16
Some Answers
 Water supply is a continuous activity. We need to be ready
for crisis happening at any time.
 We all have a probability of roughly 0.4 to face a centennial
event during our working life.
 Looking always at how to reduce the risks as part of any
operational choice is a best practice.
 There is bad luck, but there is much more bad preparedness.
 The minimum level of security for a defined risk is often given
by the population’s awareness of this risk.
 Training with exercises can be a stress reducer when faced to
a real situation.
8/16
More Thoughts
 Utilities were until recently used to dealing with « regular » water supply
problems, but not with security matters for which the notion of risk has
been re-evaluated since 9/11 to a tremendously and unforeseen higher
level never reached before.
 For this reason, they can’t afford spending time on a self learning
process for water supply security: we need to learn from each others.
 Thankfully, crisis on urban water supply are not frequent; on the other
hand, sharing of information on those incidents is not easy.
 To a certain extend, the way to react when:
 the resource is unavailable,
 the treatment process is not operational,
 the pipe network is down…
is the same whatever the reason is.
9/16
The Risk Management Loop
Analysis
Return of experience
• Risk Assessment
• Responsibilities
• Learning
Risk Management
Emergency response
Preparedness
• Detecting
• Triggering crisis
• Crisis management
• Preventing
• Training
!
10/16
Risk Management and Security Level
Water Supply
Security Gauge
Water Utility
Risk Management
100 %
Local level
Regional level
National level
Constraints
Requirements
Demands
0
Risk management never leads to 100% security or zero risks.
It just helps water suppliers to know at what level they are and if this
level fits with their goals.
11/16
A new Specialist Group on W2SM
After the last IWA World Congress in Marrakech 2004, Paul Reiter and
Michael Rouse expressed their wish to see a new Specialist Group
launched on Security and Safety Management issues.
This Specialist Group has been created in 2006.
The first committee meeting of the Water Security and Safety
Management Specialist Group was held today a few hours ago.
12/16
WATER SECURITY AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT SG MEETING
September 13 – 1:30 to 2:15
1. IWA Introductory Comments
2. Objectives and Scope of the W2SM Specialist Group
3. Constitution of task forces focusing on issues such as
•
•
•
•
•
• Natural Disaster Preparedness and Response
Man-made Disaster Preparedness and Response
Vulnerability & Risk Management Models
Research, Development and Emerging Technology Solutions
Professional Training, Public Education and Communication
Others to be proposed
4. Guiding principle for the development of technical activities
5. Upcoming conferences & participation of W2SM
6. Technical activities proposed for the next year
7. Other issues
nguyen@eaudeparis.fr
ijuran@poly.edu
What will the W2SM Specialist Group work on?
“Best Practices”:
 define measures to be taken in order to ensure continuous drinking water supply
and waste water operation.
Management of crisis situations in the water supply:
 create an international database on water related or water concerned crisis
situations and to record the lessons learned.
 use the IWA International Network to provide links and be used as a reservoir of
experts ready to offer online help and advice in water issues whenever and
wherever it is needed. The W2SM specialist group will offer its help in setting up
and organizing this response.
R&D:
 keep up to date and informed on recent R&D and new technologies in the field
of Water Security and Safety Management and their in site testing reported by
group members.
From the various cultural viewpoints within the framework of the IWA, different
approaches and experiences are expected to emerge from discussions and group
work.
13/16
Major Consumers Initiative: Why ?
 The standards for normal operation of the water systems vary from
a country to another or from a city to another; but generally speaking,
they are known in terms of pressure, availability, quantity and quality.
 Under crisis situations, the normal standards for water supply won’t
be attained. There are many possible levels of degradation of the
service from lower pressure, lower quality or just lack of any water.
 This being said, what are the consequences of the degradation of
the water service for the end user ?
14/16
Some Examples
• The Domestic Users:
They need water in quantity, but possibly of poor quality if boiling
ensures that there is no health consequences.
• The bakers:
If they cannot cook their breads, the local life of the neighborhood
will be significantly impacted !
But bakers use water during nights more than during days…
• Health Centers:
An hospital needs access, power supply and water supply in order to
be able to operate. If one of these elements lacks, the hospital has to
be evacuated.
Is there a need to work hard for water supply restoration whenever for
example power supply cannot be restored yet ?
• Industrial users:
Their use of water depends on their industrial process, for which low
pressure or low quality may not be temporarily unbearable.
15/16
The Major Consumer Initiative
The response management
under crisis situation should
aim at lowering the effects of
the crisis on the end-user.
In their efforts to restore the
water supply that has been
impacted, the utilities have to
make choices and to define
priorities for action.
In order to be more efficient, we need to know better the
consequences of any possible degradation of the water
supply service for the customer.
It is easier to start with the Major Consumers…
16/16
Thank you for your attention