I was delighted to be invited by the Chair of the Metropolitan Branch of CIWEM to attend their “Resilience and Water” event which was sponsored by and held in the offices of Arup. Resilience has been defined on several occasions including by OFWAT as “The ability to maintain essential services under extreme circumstances”. Three presentations were given which were very interesting and extremely informative.
Louise Ellis, Senior Civil Engineer in the Water Group at Arup explored water resilience in the context of the city system. The problems include climate change, outdated drainage and rapid urbanisation. Interestingly Hull has been selected as one of five cities worldwide where Arup are developing a global water resilience framework. Hull has 90% of the city standing below the high tide line.
Thames Water was represented by Keith Banner, their Strategy Manager. He spoke about Thames’ approach to water resilience in the context of OFWAT’s 2019 Price Review (PR19). A number of options are under consideration which include transferring raw water from wetter parts of the UK, building a new storage reservoir to capture and store excess flows in the Thames, desalinating water from the Thames Estuary and reusing treated effluent from sewage treatment works.
The final presentation was given by Professor Sarah Bell from the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources. Her presentation was entitled “Infrastructure resilience: designing from the bottom-up”. She spoke about community engagement with infrastructure and cited an example in Southwark where an estate of apartments had adopted a system of rain water storage for use on gardens, car washing, etc. and the cost implications of wider use for flushing WCs etc.
In all a fascinating evening rounded off with drinks and snacks and an opportunity to network with a number of interesting people including a group of younger Arup employees who took an interest in joining the Water Conservators!
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