Rapid urbanisation, climate change, and inadequate maintenance of water and waste infrastructures in cities may lead to flooding, water scarcity, water pollution, adverse health effects, and rehabilitation costs that may overwhelm the resilience of cities. These megatrends pose urgent challenges in cities as the cost of inaction is high.
POWER cities benchmarking initial work will analyse existing best practices in city water management with regard to each issue of the pilot cities: water scarcity (pilot city Milton Keynes); water quality (pilot city Sabadell); flood risk (pilot city Leicester); variables related to water conservation (pilot city Jerusalem).
▪Anglian Water Customer Awareness Campaigns (Milton Keynes)
Anglian Water’s strapline ‘Love every drop’ conveys the message of the value of water which is promoted through a number of customer awareness aimed at encouraging reduction in water consumption.
▪ EDUCASSA (Sabadell)
EDUCASSA is an educational program to educate and raise awareness of the importance of water (quality, consumption, etc.) that targets three age segments, covering the whole of compulsory basic education.
▪ Abbey Meadows Wetland project (Leicester)
Abbey Meadows is an area of open land between the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal. A ditch running through the area was susceptible to flooding, often rendering sports pitches unusable.
▪ Water conservation in distribution networks (Jerusalem)
The present trend in Jerusalem’s municipal water utilities is active management of the system, including managing water pressure, water quality, water flow. Located in a semi-arid climate, the issue of conservation is of major importance to Hagihon – The Jerusalem Regional Water Utility.