Ofwat’s “adapting to climate change report” is another step forward to ensuring the water industry changes to cope with climate change. It’s a huge challenge for the industry against a backdrop of uncertainty in the science and difficulty in predicting what the impact will be. Will summers really get hotter and dryer as some forecasts suggest – hard to believe given the wet August?
What does seem certain is that there will be more extreme events. The cost implications for the water sector are huge. Just look at the vulnerability of many sewage treatment and water treatment sites to flooding. The big stumbling block is gaining political acceptance for increasing bills to pay for the investment. Certainly in PR09 that was a step too far and now with the more challenging economic climate it is even more difficult.
Ofwat rightly aims to encourage more innovation. Anglian Water’s success so far in meeting its target to half its embodied carbon in the building of new assets shows what can be done when there is a real commitment to act. They are on track to meet the goal and do it within the tight price limits. The passion inherent in the Anglian Water Love Every Drop campaign needs to spread across the industry.
With the dark evenings approaching the books to read are Taleb’s Black Swan (The impact of the highly improbable) and Fooled by Randomness.
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