Linking water quality monitoring and climate-resilient water safety planning in two urban drinking water utilities in Ethiopia.

Unsafe drinking water is a recognized health threat in Ethiopia, and climate change, rapid population growth, urbanization and agricultural practices put intense pressure on availability and quality of water. Climate change-related health problems due to floods and waterborne diseases are increasing. With increasing insight into impacts of climate change and urbanization on water availability and quality and of required adaptations, a shift towards climate-resilient water safety planning was introduced into an Ethiopian strategy and guidance document to guarantee safe drinking water. Climate-resilient water safety planning was implemented in the urban water supplies of Addis Ababa and Adama, providing drinking water to 5 million and 500,000 people, respectively. Based on the risks identified with climate-resilient water safety planning, water quality monitoring can be optimized by prioritizing parameters and events which pose a higher risk for contaminating the drinking water. Water quality monitoring was improved at both drinking water utilities and at the Public Health Institute to provide relevant data used as input for climate-resilient water safety planning. By continuously linking water quality monitoring and climate-resilient water safety planning, utilization of information was optimized, and both approaches benefit from linking these activities.

Including aspects of climate change into water safety planning: Literature review of global experience and case studies from Ethiopian urban supplies.

In recent years, the water safety plan approach has been extended towards climate-resilient water safety planning. This happened in response to increasing insight into impacts of climate on drinking-water and required adaptation to anticipated climate change. Literature was reviewed for published guidance and case examples, documenting how to consider climate in water safety planning to support future uptake. Climate-resilient water safety plans were piloted within a project in the water supplies of Addis Ababa and Adama, Ethiopia. Case examples have been published in four of six WHO regions with a focus on urban supplies. Integration of climate aspects focused mostly on the steps of establishing the team, system description, hazard analysis and risk assessment, improvement planning and development of management procedures. While the traditional framework focuses on drinking-water quality, considering climate change augments aspects of water quantity. Therefore, other factors affecting water quantity such as population development and demand of other sectors need to be considered as well. Local climate information and tools should be employed as a significant success factor for future uptake. Such information should be incorporated as it becomes available, and may - depending on the setting - be incrementally integrated into existing water safety plans or used to develop new ones.