Water resilience begins long before construction

GHD’s Strategic water resilience webinar brought together specialists from the UK, Australia and the US to examine global approaches to strengthening water resilience, with a particular focus on the practical lessons they offer UK water companies as they respond to climate pressures, ageing infrastructure and evolving customer needs. 

Facilitated by Jessica Kahl, the discussion drew on insights from Graham Bateman, Greg Finlayson and Chris Benjamin to examine the decisions behind successful schemes, from early planning and environmental evidence to owner capability, regulatory engagement and long-term delivery. 

Desalination and advanced water recycling can play an important role in the UK’s future water security. The treatment technologies are established, and international experience provides valuable lessons. Translating that experience into successful UK schemes depends on the decisions surrounding the technology: defining the need, safeguarding sites, building the evidence base and developing the capability to deliver.

The starting point is a clear understanding of what each scheme must achieve within the wider water resources portfolio. When will the water be needed? What level of reliability must the scheme provide? How will it work alongside reservoirs, transfers, leakage reduction and demand management? These answers should inform capacity and configuration before a preferred solution becomes difficult to reconsider. 

GHD’s global desalination and reuse specialist, Greg Finlayson, explains how Australian desalination investments formed part of broader programmes to improve the supply-demand balance. Their prominence can obscure parallel investment in connections, demand reduction and other measures. The lesson is to assess each scheme by its contribution to the wider system.

Once the need is established, owners must identify what needs protecting early. Suitable sites, pipeline corridors, power connections and environmental survey opportunities can determine whether a project remains deliverable. 

Greg highlights an Australian experience with lasting consequences: alternative sites considered for earlier projects were subsequently developed for other uses. Preserving future options therefore requires action well before construction begins. It also requires clear alignment between the identified need, available funding and a credible commitment to proceed. 

The evidence base requires the same early attention. Feedwater quality, seasonal variation, marine conditions and network interfaces shape both the design and the environmental assessment. Collecting this information takes time, while gaps can lead to costly reconsideration later.

Owners also need the capability to interpret the evidence and act on it. This requires technical, commercial, legal, planning, regulatory and operational expertise under clear leadership. An effective owner can challenge supplier claims, manage interfaces and allocate responsibility for risks as a scheme progresses through development, procurement and operation.

Regulators and communities should be engaged while their input can still influence the project. Drawing on US experience, Chris Benjamin, GHD’s industrial water leader for the Americas, emphasises the importance of understanding the site-specific operational and environmental conditions of a proposed scheme.

For example, intake and discharge arrangements affect treatment design, environmental outcomes, cost and public confidence. Early evidence enables developers to discuss these relationships meaningfully and to incorporate mitigation into the scheme from the outset.

Chris also stresses the importance of anticipating change. At Carlsbad in California, the desalination project’s connection to an existing power station required future intake and discharge arrangements to be considered before the station ceased operating. Infrastructure decisions must reflect the conditions a plant may face throughout its operating lifecycle.

This long-term view should also encourage flexibility. Owners need to distinguish urgent decisions that are urgent from those that can remain open. Safeguarding a site may be essential now, while final.

Finally, each project should leave the next one better prepared. Programmes need to preserve why decisions were made, the assumptions that supported them and the areas of remaining uncertainty. Otherwise, teams and advisers lose valuable knowledge over time.

AI-supported retrieval can help people find relevant evidence and previous decisions. Its value depends on governed information, quality controls and technical assurance. Engineering judgement remains with accountable professionals.

The UK has an opportunity to draw on international experience while developing evidence for its own conditions. Success will depend on owners making well-informed decisions at the right time, retaining flexibility to adapt and ensuring that learning survives beyond individual projects. That is how a pipeline of schemes becomes a stronger, more resilient water system.