• Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail
  • Call Me Back
  • About
  • Knowledge
📞 Call us on 0330 223 31 31
Water Treatment Services
  • Home
  • Water
    • Applications
      • Boiler Water Treatment
      • Cooling Water Treatment
      • Closed Loop Water Treatment
      • Legionella Control
    • Services
      • Cooling Tower Cleaning
      • Cooling Tower Maintenance
      • Chlorine Dioxide Water Treatment
      • Commercial Water Softeners
      • Expert Witness Services
      • Pre-Commission Cleaning
      • Tank Reline & Repair
      • TMV Servicing
      • Water Chlorination & Disinfection
      • Water Leak Detection
      • Water Testing
        • Drinking Water Testing
        • Metals Testing
        • Pool Water Testing
        • BSRIA Closed System Testing
        • SDI Testing & Analysis
        • Trade Effluent Testing
    • Training
      • Water Treatment Training
      • Basic Chemistry of Water
      • Industrial Treatment
      • Pre-Treatment
      • Boiler Treatment
      • Cooling Systems
      • Closed Systems
      • Wastewater Training
      • Advanced Treatments
      • Training Dates 2021
  • Wastewater
    • Metals Testing
    • Trade Effluent Testing
    • Wastewater Training
    • Expert Witness Services
  • Air
    • Ductwork Cleaning
    • Indoor Air Quality
    • Local Exhaust Ventilation Testing
    • Mould Testing
    • Expert Witness Services
  • Energy
  • Legionella
    • Legionella Risk Assessment
    • Legionella Training Courses
      • Legionella Awareness Training
      • Responsible Person Training
      • Water Hygiene Awareness
      • Pseudomonas Training
      • Training Dates 2021
    • Legionella Testing
    • Expert Witness Services
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
You are here: Home1 / Knowledge2 / Energy3 / What is Water Resilience?
What is water resilience?

What is Water Resilience?

This article looks at the subject of water resilience, what it means; and how and why it is becoming an increasingly important issue for societies around the globe. It examines the impact of climate change, water scarcity and the growing trend for smaller, decentralised water systems and strategies that can improve the longer term resilience of water systems.

What is water resilience?

Resilience, specifically water resilience isn’t an easy concept to explain when talking about environmental sustainability.

It’s easy to come up with an accurate, narrow definition; not so easy to write a definition which encompasses all of the global water problems being faced by our planet in the 21st century.

Academics the world over will continue to argue about exactly what resilience means to them, and it’s unlikely that one set definition will emerge any time soon.

However, what is generally agreed is that “water resilience” can be defined as a societies ability to adapt to changes in the availability of water resources forced upon it by changing weather patterns or socio-ecological factors, and its ability to respond to these long term changes in water use in an uncertain future.

What is relative resilience?

The concept of relative resilience is nothing new, and dates back to the noted 17th century thinker Francis Bacon.

He first used the word resilience to describe echoes being reflected from a wall… the origins of the word describe bouncing back.

When applied to ecology, there is another factor to resilience; a system can only be described as resilient when it has something to bounce back from.

The effects of global warming and changing 21st century weather patterns mean that across the world, countries and smaller regions must adapt to extreme weather shocks.

Figures show that significant hurricanes, floods and droughts are becoming increasingly more common.

Looking at the longer-term, climate change could lead to wider problems with water shortages across wide swathes of the globe, and increasing desertification.

Resilience doesn’t just apply to water; it’s a word being used by a wide range of industries to describe the challenges they are facing.

Ecological resilience in the 21st Century

The 1960s and 1970s saw the first use of the concept of resilience in ecology but purely in scientific contexts.

However, by the first decade of the 21st century, the use of the term had broadened out to mean socio-ecological systems, and the term was being used by a much wider range of academics and organisations, leading to the problems of trying to wrap up a firm definition.

Scientists at the start of the 21st century were beginning to accept that it was impossible to make environmental policy in isolation, without taking into account a whole range of other natural and human systems too.

Improving resilience in water systems

Experts working at the resilience centre at Stockholm University focus on resilience in water systems.

They argue that although the usual aim of experts in engineering and water management is to consolidate water systems into one large network, smaller, decentralised systems are often far better placed to adapt to weather and other environmental shocks.

Just as in other types of system, if one small part of a system stops working, the other parts of the system can pick up the slack to allow it to continue working.

On the other hand, if all parts of a system are vertically integrated, something going wrong can cause catastrophic failure across the system.

Experts point out that we have over time been decentralising… replacing land line phones with mobiles, and using small solar farms and wind farms instead of huge power plants.

If one wind turbine stops working, the effects are barely noticed.

If a whole power plant goes down, thousands of homes might be blacked out.

Decentralised water systems

Expanding on this approach, decentralised water systems could operate in the same way, having the resilience to deal with a range of environmental factors such as:

  • Floods or droughts
  • Water scarcity or other stress on demand
  • Depletion of surface water or groundwater
  • Leaks in the pipe network

Working towards better water resilience    

Scientists around the world are already working towards building resilience into their water systems.

There are various projects underway across the world, some using very innovative approaches.

Some of the strategies currently being put into place include:

  • Upgrading reservoirs in order to increase the amount of water which can be effectively stored, and stopping as much water which falls as rain as possible from flowing into the oceans.
  • Reusing water, such as projects using wastewater from domestic settings to irrigate fields, or to develop ways of reusing wastewater from industry and factories.
  • Desalination – techniques for removing salts from water are getting cheaper as demand increases, especially in areas such as the Middle East.
  • Recreating depleted groundwater and aquifers through managed recharge projects.

Specialist industrial wastewater and water re-use solutions

Water Treatment Services offer a comprehensive range of innovative water purification solutions including the treatment of industrial wastewater and trade effluent; and rainwater and greywater recycling.

Our experts can provide advice and support to help you identify the most appropriate strategies for the identification, investigation and implementation water reuse programmes.

With offices in London serving the South and South East England, Manchester (North West), Birmingham (Midlands), Bristol (South East England and Wales), Leeds (North and North East) and Glasgow (Scotland), supported by regional teams of specially trained water purification engineers and wastewater treatment specialists we offer cost effective environmental support solutions across the whole of the UK and internationally.

Contact us today to learn how our water reuse solutions can help improve your own water resilience.

Contact Us Today

Further reading…

More information about our wastewater treatment solutions.

 

Tags: desalination, reverse osmosis, Wastewater treatment, water reuse
You might also like
Membrane fouling Membrane Fouling – How to Control Fouling of Membrane Filters
What is aerobic wastewater treatment? What is Aerobic Wastewater Treatment?
Seawater desalination Is Seawater Desalination the Solution to Water Scarcity?
Wastewater treatment in the food processing sector Optimising Wastewater Treatment in the Food Processing Sector
What is biological wastewater treatment? Biological Wastewater Treatment – What Is It & How Does It Work?
How industrial wastewater treatment works How Industrial Wastewater Treatment Works
Greywater recycling Adopting Greywater Recycling & Water Reuse Technologies
What are the challenges facing wastewater treatment plant operators? What Challenges Face Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators?

Search…

What’s New

  • How Boiler Water Treatment Affects Performance

    How Boiler Water Treatment Affects Performance

    In this article the industrial steam boiler specialists at …
  • Improving HVAC Energy Efficiency

    Improving HVAC Energy Efficiency

    This article examines how businesses can optimise energy consumption, …
  • What is Waste Acceptance Criteria or WAC Testing?

    What is Waste Acceptance Criteria or WAC Testing?

    In this article the industrial waste specialists at WTS …
  • How to Prevent Mould Growth in the Workplace

    How to Prevent Mould Growth in the Workplace

    In this workplace safety review the environmental hygiene specialists …
  • How Expert Reports Help Resolve Disputes

    How Expert Reports Help Resolve Disputes

    Water Treatment Services experienced expert witnesses provide independent, impartial …
  • How Industrial Wastewater Treatment Works

    How Industrial Wastewater Treatment Works

    In this article the wastewater treatment specialists at WTS …

REVIEWS

4.8
Rated 4.8 out of 5
Water Treatment Services is rated 4.8 out of 5 stars (based on 97 reviews)
Read our reviews

Free Newsletter

Receive exciting features, news, latest research and special offers! Just add your email address and we'll do the rest.

Contact us

Water Treatment Services

[email protected]

Tel: 0330 223 31 31

© Copyright 2022 - EDG Ltd. Operating as Water Treatment Services
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail
  • Home
  • About
  • Careers
  • Privacy
  • Environment
  • Reviews
  • Sitemap
Managing Asbestos in the Workplace – Practical Guidance Asbestos in the workplace What is Silver Hydrogen Peroxide? What is Silver Stabilised Hydrogen Peroxide?
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OK

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy
Accept settingsHide notification only