Water safety management during the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic: challenges, responses and guidance

ABSTRACT

Water safety plans address both routine operations and incident responses to support risk management in drinking water utilities. Their use and relevance in facing the challenges of the Covid-19 crisis were investigated via a survey distributed to water utilities and health or environmental agencies across the globe. Responses from 86 respondents from 38 countries were analysed to identify the water safety challenges faced and responses. Water safety plans appear to provide some preparedness and organizational advantages to utilities in facing the Covid-19 crisis, including stronger communication links between utilities and governing agencies. Guidance for future water safety planning is provided.

KEYWORDS:

• Water safety plan
• risk management
• drinking water supply
• Covid-19
• emergency response

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the organizations that helped to distribute or advertise the survey during summer 2020, including the UN-Habitat’s Global Water Operators Partnership Alliance (GWOPA), the World Health Organization (WHO), IHE Delft (alumni mailing list), the World Bank, Suez, EurEau, the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association and the Programme d’excellence en eau potable (PEXEP of Réseau Environnement in Québec, Canada), as well as all the professional contacts of the research team who circulated the survey. We thank Baptiste Leveque for his help with the online survey; Jacqueline Noga for survey advice; and Simon Dufort for help with data analysis. We also thank Jennifer De France, Angella Rinehold and Rory Moses McKeown at WHO for reviewing and commenting on the survey questionnaire.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2021.2016378

Additional information

Funding

A small part of this project was funded by the first author’s (F. Bichai) individual research funds (NSERC Discovery Grant), funding from the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR Intersectoral Prevention Research Teams-Urban Forms Grant) [grant number TGEHIPR 150713, competition 201607] (N. Ashbolt and J. Noga); the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [grant number 6640-2018]; and Alberta Innovates Health Solutions Translational Health Chair in Waterborne Diseases [grant number 201300490] (N. Ashbolt).

Notes on contributors

F. Bichai

All authors contributed to this study: all authors (except S.B.) participated in initial discussions at the start of the study. F.B., G.F., D.D. and P.S. designed the survey. F.B., G.F. and P.S. contributed to the survey’s dissemination; F.B. managed the survey; and F.B. and G.F. analysed the results. All the authors contributed to writing the article.