Increasing the resilience of urban water utilities to extreme weather events

The sustainability of municipal drinking water services in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria requires that its water utilities enhance their resilience to a range of risks posed by extreme weather events. Excellence in managing such risks is essential, not only to the bottom line and reputation of the utilities, but also to the wellbeing and prosperity of the people they serve and the preservation of nature in order to sustain ecosystem services. In the context of this study, organisational resilience has been defined as the adaptive deployment of the utility s assets and structures within its continua of inter-dependences to improve and sustain performance even in the face of repeated perturbations. On the other hand, vulnerability is defined as the utility s inability to withstand adverse stress based on limited or constrained capacity to adapt hence creating pathways through which risk impacts the utility. This definition of vulnerability is in tandem with those that argue that the key parameters of vulnerability are the stress to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity. In view of this, and also based on the findings of the study, the study notes that utility management could be a complex and challenging task, especially, in a multi-risk delta environment where extreme events are intense and frequent. Utility managers can become veterans of risks by dissipating, more than ever before technical competence, watershed/ecosystem awareness, social engagement skills and conceptual ability. The latter includes an understanding of how the complexities of the upstream and downstream environment impacts on the utility s internal environment and operations. The diffusive nature of risk makes every risk a potential high impact risk and the understanding of this, is the key to a resilient organization. Risk analysis and management in water utilities should aim to limit the diffusion of risks across streams in order to retard vulnerability. Utility resilience options will need to vary depending on climate related risks to each system, utility management goals, legislation, local and national water management strategies and finance. Utilities in the Niger delta needs to fully understand that they operate close to the edge by virtue of being below sea level and should cultivate a keen awareness of the consequences of flooding and saltwater intrusion, and the importance to manage them amongst others. The study has shown that there is need now, more than ever before for increased revenue generation, elimination of wastes/inefficiencies, financial investment and strategic management of water services operations in the study area if residents and the unborn generation are to be guaranteed of safe and adequate drinking water

Incorporating productive use into water systems in urban Nigeria

Recent studies have shown that millions of lowincome households use their limited water supplies for activities such as productive uses as well as domestic needs. Such productive uses of water may not really thrive or even take off unless the required quantity of water is available. Such activities often generate numerous benefits to households involved. An understanding of how productive uses of water could successfully be mainstreamed into urban water systems in Nigeria was studied. Water supplies to households by the water utilities in Nigeria have traditionally been confined within what is known as domestic water needs. The quantity of water supplied has often been meant to cover basic needs such as drinking, cooking and personal sanitation needs etc. However this has not been a true reflection of the use of this limited amount of water supplied. A social survey was made of households and institutions in Owerri, Nigeria; where productive uses of water is already real, particularly in activities such as home gardening, horticulture and livestock rearing etc. In view of the persisting problem in water supplies in Nigeria, where water utilities such as the Imo State Water Corporation (ISWC) is still enmeshed in intermittent supplies; the paper explores the implications for households, especially the productive water users; alternative water suppliers and the government. The aim is to identify how supply sustainability for these activities could be maximized as a veritable tool vital in the fight against poverty. Given the importance of the urban water system to low income productive water users, a functional and efficient utility as well as an appropriate policy framework has been identified as being imperative in order to maximize income and employment benefits for urban productive water users

Coupling utility performance targets with catchment management

Institutional reform of state-owned water utilities serving urban areas has often set out to turn them into effective and efficient organisations, so that they can become excellent service providers. However, the pursuit of such objectives, which are often based on commercial targets, woefully ignores efficient catchment management. In view of this, this study reviews the case of the Cross State Water Board (CRSWB) Ltd in Calabar, eastern Nigeria. It identifies the serial neglect of the local watershed as a factor responsible for its operational and maintenance costs. It therefore argues for the need to develop and integrate catchment or ecosystem indicators into overall performance indicators currently used in setting and monitoring performance by the water utility as well as other utilities elsewhere, their owners or regulators. Such socio-ecological considerations as manifest in a catchment, according to the paper, are vital in building appropriate resilience against hazard risks such as flooding, land erosion, land inundation and salt water intrusion which currently plague the CRSWB, hence offering a bold and sustainable road map towards service efficiency and effectiveness for the growing urban population under a variable climate