In the third of its Community Resilience Benchmarks, the water benchmark addresses resilience of drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems. The Alliance for National and Community Resilience (ANCR) released the new benchmark recently after both the building and housing benchmarks were released in 2019.
ANCR’s Community Resilience Benchmarks (CRBs) support communities in assessing their resilience and developing strategies for improvement. These benchmarks take a coordinated, holistic look at the people, services and processes that make communities work.
The water benchmark was developed by a committee of subject matter experts co-chaired by Andy Kricun, Managing Director at Moonshot Missions and Senior Fellow at the U.S. Water Alliance, and Jennifer Adams, an emergency management consultant. Committee members included representatives from the American Chemistry Council, American Water Works Association, Codes and Standards International, Denver Water, Ductile Iron Pipe Research Association, Dupont Water Solutions, McWane, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“Water is such an essential aspect of communities. We’re grateful for the contributions made by committee members to help capture the policies and practices that support resilience in this sector,”[1] said Evan Reis, Executive Director of the U.S. Resiliency Council and Chair of the ANCR Board of Directors.
“We look forward to working with communities to integrate the Community Resilience Benchmarks into their current resilience initiatives,” commented ANCR Executive Director Ryan Colker. “Not only does the Water Benchmark provide an excellent enhancement to the provisions contained the Buildings and Housing Benchmarks, but it also helps communities determine how their water systems and utilities contribute to their resilience goals to inform future investments that help protect residents and businesses from disaster.”
All three of the Community Resilience Benchmarks can be viewed here.
[1] WaterWorld Staff (2020, December 11). Water infrastructure resilience benchmark report released. WaterWorld. https://www.waterworld.com/water-utility-management/press-release/14188901/new-community-benchmark-on-water-infrastructure-resilience-released
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