Learning from Crises to Build Urban Water Security

Résumé du livre

Reliable access to safe and affordable drinking water is a core service provided by city governments around the world. These services are critical to people's health and well-being, local and regional economies, and environmental sustainability. As the climate changes, infrastructure ages, and populations grow, many cities are--or will be--facing serious threats to their ability to maintain or enhance the level of service that they can provide and ensure the long-term resilience of their water supplies. In this report, the authors examine the experiences of five cities--Cape Town, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia; São Paulo, Brazil; and Las Vegas, Nevada, and New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States--facing severe or catastrophic water supply risks to identify steps that could be taken ahead of time to mitigate those risks and build urban water security. These case studies represent a variety of national and demographic contexts. Drawing on interviews with experts and decisionmakers and a review of reports and journal articles, the authors identify the key drivers of these water supply crises and detail firsthand accounts of how these crises could have been avoided. The authors identify the strategies available to decisionmakers--the people managing urban water systems and shaping the broader financial and regulatory environment in which they work--to proactively mitigate the possibility of catastrophic risk to urban water supplies. The insights provide key lessons for preparing for and ultimately avoiding water supply crises in the future by building urban water security.