Cadwes 

UNECWAS seminar presentations are available

Posted on 15/06/2018 by Annina Takala

On Friday 8 June 2018, group of water service experts and practitioners gathered at the sixth annual seminar of the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Water Services to discuss and debate on resiliency and rehabilitation of aging infrastructure. Programme and presentations of the seminar can be found here.

Prof. Esteban Castro challenged us to rethink what we mean when we talk about resilience. There is a lot of scientific literature on resilience, but hardly any address the questions what & whose problems resilience is to solve, let alone the question Why resiliency?

Associate Prof. Klaas Schwartz presented a case study from a Dutch water Utility in Vitens giving an overview of the varied approaches to resilience in Dutch water sector. Approaches depend on e.g. scale and are strongly linked to water source.

In her presentation, Dr Sarah Ward  discussed the diversity of approaches to resilience in the water sector and research in the UK, concluding that resilience, like sustainability is a journey, not an end point.

The afternoon session was started by Adj. Prof. Petri Juuti who told about the Research and Innovation Cluster of Water Services (VEPATUKI). According to preliminary results, networks are in rather good shape in Finland.

Managing directors Petri Jokela (Tampere Water) and Jukka Meriluoto (Hämeenlinna Region Water Utility) discussed resilience from the perspective of the water utilities. According to them, the concept of resilience is not discussed too much in Finnish water sector, but more focus is put on similar concept such as reliability.

Jyrki Laitinen discussed ways of promoting resilience and rehabilitation of aging infrastructure especially in Finland and highlighted the role of good governance. According to Laitinen, we need attitude change in all water utilities – both big and small.

 

CADWES research team celebrates its 20th anniversary and in his presentation, Adj. Prof. Tapio Katko gave a glimpse of what has been done during these years and presented some key conclusions related to resilience. Adj. Prof. Katko continued Laitinen’s idea of the need for attitude change and asked whether the Finnish water sector would actually need an attitude change instead of structural change.

 

This entry was posted in Seminars, UNECWAS. Bookmark the permalink.


Vastaa

Sähköpostiosoitettasi ei julkaista. Pakolliset kentät on merkitty *