Water as critical infrastructure

Upload your content
Image
A little girl drink water from outdoor tap which water supplied by drilling well
Vietnam Stock Images/Shutterstock

Introduction

People around the world are supported by an intricate mesh of water, sanitation and drainage systems. When these systems are neglected for prolonged periods of time or when these systems are exposed to natural hazards and disasters, the systems become vulnerable to collapse. It is crucial to plan for and evaluate the impact of potential stressors at the system level and focus specifically on incorporating resilience into the engineering design of drinking water and sanitation infrastructure.

 

Themes
Critical infrastructure
Water

Knowledge base

Documents and publications

Ageing water storage infrastructure: An emerging global risk

A emerging global development issue are ageing large dams, as tens of thousands of existing large dams have reached or exceeded an "alert" age threshold of 50 years, and many others will soon approach 100 years.
Documents and publications

Resilient water infrastructure design brief

With a focus on the three natural hazards most likely to affect water and sanitation infrastructure (droughts, floods, and high winds from storms), the document provides a six-step process to help users address weather and climate related challenges.
Update

FEATURE: Nepali town embraces diverse water supply strategies to spread risk, buffer shocks

Bidur in Nepal demonstrates how small- and large-scale water schemes can complement each other and spread the risks of disruption to water supply.
Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies
Update

A city-by-city guide to how water supplies fared in Australia’s summer of extremes

Water played a key role in Australia’s 2019-20 environmental extremes. The prolonged drought contributed to bushfires and widespread water shortage.
Conversation Media Group, the
Update

Buried in mud: Wildfires threaten North American water supplies

A recent global analyses shows almost every continent's water supply faces high risk from wildfires, it is becoming an emerging challenge in North America.
Conversation Media Group, the
Research briefs

Dwindling inflows into catchment areas – a water supply disaster in the making?

Study suggests frequency of water restrictions in Australia set to treble by end of century as climate change significantly reduces inflows into natural reservoirs.
University of New South Wales
Documents and publications

Water infrastructure resilience: Examples of dams, wastewater treatment plants, and water supply and sanitation systems

Water systems are a special kind of infrastructure system because they perform a dual role: they provide water services while also reducing risks to other services from natural hazards such as floods and droughts.
Documents and publications

Water infrastructure for climate adaptation: the opportunity to scale up funding and financing

This report provides an overview of existing innovative financing tools for water infrastructure, which can help increase funding for adaptation as a means to achieve global climate ambitions. 
Documents and publications

Critical success factors for resilient water infrastructure

This working paper presents a set of five critical factors for increasing the climate resilience of water infrastructure. It is based on a review of six CDKN funded projects across Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Is this page useful?

Yes No
Report an issue on this page

Thank you. If you have 2 minutes, we would benefit from additional feedback (link opens in a new window).