Friday, March 21, 2025
Challenge
Drought, flooding, population growth and other future risks are significantly impacting communities across Canada. Decision-makers, including water and wastewater utility managers, face the challenging task of accounting for uncertainty in their planning processes. While conventional planning approaches address some uncertainty, they often lack the flexibility needed for cost-effective modifications as conditions evolve over time. This leaves utilities in a challenging position, where plans fail to align with or adapt to the new conditions.
How can future potential uncertainties be integrated into critical plans, such as watershed and land-use planning, zoning, water supply, wastewater and stormwater management, and flood risk control?
Project
Adaptive planning is an approach to water management and infrastructure planning that considers future uncertainty to generate multiple solution pathways. CWN is leading the adaptive planning project, funded by Natural Resources Canada, to adapt international best practices for use by Canadian water management professionals.
While the concept of integrating adaptation into water and wastewater plans is relatively new in Canada, international water professionals have made significant strides in this area. They have developed guidance frameworks, principles and practices that incorporate uncertainty and risk into long-term water, wastewater and stormwater planning to address plausible future scenarios. Examples of adaptation frameworks that support the concept of “living plans,” which can be more easily adjusted over time, include the Adaptive Planning Pathway (AP) framework and Water Sensitive Cities (WSC) systems approach. These frameworks have been applied in countries such as Australia and the U.K. to help utility decision-makers incorporate uncertainty in long-term water and infrastructure planning.
To read the full best practices report, visit Canadian Water Networks: https://cwn-rce.ca/project/adaptative-planning-for-canadian-water-utilities/
