Chris Hughes, drought specialist at Arup, has written a guest blog for the Resilience Shift. In it he discusses some of the ways cities might better prepare for drought and resilience to water scarcity. Chris spoke about the work of his team recently at the IWA Conference on Efficient Water Management in Manila in January this year and referenced the Resilience Shift, and its work on the City Water Resilience Approach and online collaboration tool. You can see his presentation here.

1. City Scale Drought Risk and Resilience Decision Support
Chris Hughes, Arup

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• Introduction and Context
• Some Perspectives on Drought Risk
• What’s happening in our Cities?
• How we can help make Cities more Drought Resilient
- Cities Alive
- City Water Resilience Framework
- Engaging Stakeholders
• Summary
City Scale Drought Risk and Resilience Decision
Support

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The World Bank and the United Nations have published a report warning that 40 percent of
the world is currently affected by water scarcity. The report, entitled Making Every Drop
Count, states that around 2.5 billion people – 36 percent of the world’s population – live in
water-scarce regions where more than 20 percent of global GDP is produced. “By 2050,
more than half of the world’s population—and about half of global grain production—will
be at risk due to water stress,” it adds.
Around 90 percent of financing for disaster risk mitigation however is directed at
emergency response and reconstruction, leaving a shortfall in preparatory measure and
resilience. The report adds that: “while US$106 trillion is available through different funds
worldwide, only 1.6 percent is invested in infrastructure and even less in initiatives to
increase resilience”.
Context

4. The expanded nexus
Why Water Resilience?

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2018 - A Drought challenge in the Northern
Hemisphere
A heat map showing the northern hemisphere in July 2018 (Climate Reanalyzer from the University of Maine)

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UK July 2018 – North West England
Derby Telegraph 2018

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• General climate change trends projected over UK land for the
21st century are broadly consistent with earlier projections
(UKCP09) showing an increased chance of milder, wetter winters
and hotter, drier summers along with an increase in the frequency
and intensity of extremes.
• By the end of the 21st century, all areas of the UK are projected to
be warmer, more so in summer than in winter.
• Hot summers are expected to become more common.
And we can expect more of the same (UKCP18
Projections)

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Understanding Drought Risks
• Of course there are excellent tools available to assess Drought
Risk:
• In cities we need these modelling tools but we also need to take
a more holistic approach so let’s turn our attention to the
challenge in cities
Flood & Drought portalIDMP

9. 68% of the world’s
population will live in cities
by 2050.
Water is fundamental to
inclusive, safe, resilient and
sustainable cities.
Drought Represents on of the
key ‘shocks and stresses’
facing city resilience
Why Cities?

10. Why Cities?

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What’s happening in our Cities?
100 RC (2018)

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The Fastest Growing Cities are also at highest risk from
climate change

13. Responding to the Challenge of Droughts in Cities
Drought in
Cities
City Water
Resilience
Framework
Engaging
New Actors
Cities Alive

14. Cities Alive Putting People First
Basin Sensitive Cities
Integrated Design
City Regeneration
Transcending Barriers
Atofogasta, one of the driest cities in the world, Cities Alive: Rethinking cities in arid environments

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• Cities Alive: Water for People demonstrates how understanding a city’s water
basin can lead to better water management and can protect the local
environment.
• ‘Working together’ and ‘Working with nature’ are two key take aways from
this report.
• Connecting people and re-thinking approach to city water management and
city interaction with water resource.
• Harnessing opportunities across the whole water cycle to reduce drought
conditions.
• ‘Upstream thinking’ is important for how cities approach water management.
This calls for greater collaboration, working with landowners, business and local
authorities further upstream to consider the water basin as a whole.
Cities Alive and Drought Resilience

16. Defining Urban Water Resilience
“the capacity of the urban water system - including the
human, social, political, economic, physical and natural
assets - to anticipate, absorb, adapt, respond to, and
learn from shocks and stresses, in order to protect
public health and wellbeing, the natural environment
and minimise economic disruption.”
Resilience includes key functions and the policies, programmes and infrastructures that:
• Provide affordable access to water and sanitation for all
• Protect residents from water-related shocks and stresses
• Connect people to opportunities through transportation

17. City Water Resilience Approach
The City Water Resilience
Approach is a multi-step
process that moves from
stakeholder engagement and
city assessment, to creating
and implementing action
plans, and then monitoring the
results of interventions. It has
been developed with the goal
of helping cities achieve safer
and more secure water
resources, and protections in
place from water-related
shocks and stresses.

18. AMMAN
MEXICO
CITY
GREATER MIAMI
& THE BEACHES
CAPE TOWN
HULLGREATER
MANCHESTER ROTTERDAM
THESSALONIKI
LOCATION: Amman
POPULATION: 4 million
LOCATION: Cape Town
POPULATION: 3.7 million
LOCATION: Hull
POPULATION: 323,000
LOCATION: Mexico City
POPULATION: 21.3 million
LOCATION: Miami
POPULATION: 5.9 million
City Water Resilience Framework

19. 4 Dimensions
12 Goals
52 Sub-Goals
Qualitative
Indicators
Quantitative
Indicators
What objectives you need
to achieve water resilience?
Which factors should
you observe ?
City Water Resilience Framework
Leadership & Strategy
Infrastructure & Ecosystems
Health & Wellbeing
Planning & Finance

20. Leadership & Strategy
Infrastructure & Ecosystems Health & Wellbeing
Planning & Finance
City Water Resilience Framework

21. Engaging with City Stakeholders

22. A Collaborative Approach

23. WaterShare
Current Functions
1. Water Cycle Mapping
2. Stakeholder Network
3. Governance Process Mapping
4. Resilient Governance Assessment
Purposes
1. Improves coordination between
organizations working in the
urban water system
2. Visualizes complex systems for
non-specialists
3. Facilitates an analysis of resilient
governance

24. Exploring Shocks & Stresses using WaterShare
• WaterShare - digital governance tool
• Helps users map the stakeholder landscape
• Helps cities better understand their local
water basin - types of shocks and stresses
confronted, their impact on natural and
man-made infrastructural systems, and the
interaction between key stakeholders
involved in urban water management.

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• Clear challenge to address the resilience of cities to drought
globally
• We obviously need robust water resources understanding and
metrics to underpin our planning and adaptation to drought
• However there is a need for more holistic and integrated planning
that supports the principles of the IWA Water Wise Cities – more
multi sector focus
• Engaging people and convening new actors is key - our Cities
Alive and WaterShare Initiatives are toolkits to support this
objective
• Our CWRF can be adapted to deliver a Drought Focussed Lens
to help understand and respond to holistic challenges of droughts
and cities
Summary