Water availability and sustainable sanitation are key aspects in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, having implications on human dignity and equity, public health and environmental protection, resource management and sustainability for future generations.
Water distribution and sanitation systems in high-income countries have expanded following decades of investment and can now rely on large infrastructure systems covering the majority of the population. However, this is often at the expense of being energy intensive processes and, in some cases, difficult to maintain assets.
Water systems in low- and middle-income countries are not at the same level of coverage and may be impacted by discontinuous service as a result of a lack of resources and skills training. However, this presents an opportunity to implement new approaches to provide water services that protect public health and the environment.
New ideas for water distribution and sanitation services that are quick to implement, cheap, well accepted and are able to deliver sufficient health and environmental protection affords an opportunity for innovation to achieve sustainability and resilience not only in low- and middle-income countries but also in high-income countries where management of ageing assets, increasing environmental standards, energy demand and carbon emissions are becoming difficult challenges to tackle for the water sector.
The overall question for the debate will be: can innovation, cooperation and knowledge transfer help low-, middle- and high-income countries achieve sustainable water and sanitation?
The 2023 National Water Resilience Debate will be co-organised with the support of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Water and Waste Infrastructure and Services Engineered for Resilience (Water-WISER).
Event programme
| 10:00-10:10 | Welcome addresses and introduction to the event |
| Keynotes session | |
| 10:10-11:00 | Joy Nyawira Riungu - Director, Sanitation Research Institute, Meru University of Science and Technology | David N Thomas - Technical Director of Wastewater Engineering and Principal WATSAN Engineer, Mott MacDonald | John Knight - Technical Advisor of South Asia Region, WaterAid |
| Debate session | |
| 11:15-12:15 | Matthew MacRorie - Researcher, University of Sheffield | Ruth Sylvester - Researcher, University of Leeds | Maitreyi Koduganti - President, Water Youth Network | Michael Templeton - Professor of Public Health Engineering, Imperial College London |
| 12:15-12:30 | Closing remarks |
Who should attend
Professionals, politicians, civil servants, academics, members of the public active or interested in the UK water sector or related areas.
Cost
Free to join.How to register
Please register by completing this form.
