Ensuring resilient water infrastructure in a changing climate
[...]
To increase the confidence in our investments in the sector we need to have a risk-based decision-making system. Unless you understand your overall climate risk – which is an overview of the associated exposure, hazards and vulnerabilities -you cannot assess the lifetime of your asset. Infrastructure designed for a one in hundred-year event may not last one hundred years because of a changing climate. Once you understand these risks you will be able to fine tune the design aspect and implement the project. There is quite a standard way to do this: it is necessary to assess the vulnerabilities, the exposure to hazards that is associated with the infrastructure, and develop a dynamic, adaptive pathway which provide step by step mechanisms to respond to needs. Also we must act decisively and innovatively. There are several tools, technologies are available for assessing risks and guiding our investment decisions. Investing in climate-resilient infrastructure is no longer optional; it is imperative. We must bolster our water storage capabilities, strengthen flood defenses, and secure our water supply systems. Nature-based solutions, as demonstrated in many countries, offer a promising path forward. Finally, collaboration is key. As we plan for the future, we must consider multi-sector trade-offs and embrace both incremental and transformational adaptations. Our strategies must be comprehensive and far-reaching.
This involves adopting an incremental approach, whereby one is planning for the long term, but working in segments or modules, evaluating each step in turn and making decisions on the next intervention based on the results achieved. You need a proper health check for your assets: asset metering , using new sensors and related technology which can help monitor the health of an asset on an ongoing basis and assess its overall life span. There is quite a lot of new technology which enables real time monitoring of assets.
It could actually be a revolution for your asset management perspectives, because if you understand your assets, you can actually reduce your operations and maintenance costs. Instead of being faced with critical damage, you can act in advance to ensure ongoing maintenance.
The Green Climate Fund has a large portfolio of investments aimed to achieve a water secure future, and it has now entered a new phase of co-production of projects with partners which is more iterative and in which the GCF is using its store of knowledge to propose interventions from its side also. This is about how we have evolved to support direct access to the GCF for countries (including, as well as about supporting private sector involvement. We do not want to act as a post office anymore, but we prefer to work together on a proposal. We have often received the comment that the application process can take time and it is often difficult for countries to distinguish development issues from climate change issues. Our funds are for climate change impacts, and to help understand where we bring the additionality and complementarity, it is more fruitful to work through co-production. We have managed to reduce the transactional time, whereby in stead of having several iterations of a proposal with a turnaround time to more faster and quicker to access funding.
[...]