Resiliency in Master Planning: Reduce Risk and Shorten Recovery Time by Identifying and Prioritizing System-Wide Improvements

Historically, master planning for water distribution systems, sanitary sewer collection systems, and treatment plants has focused on three main factors: growth and capacity, standards and regulations, and, in the past ten years, the condition of their assets. While these factors give utilities an effective strategy for understanding which future projects they need given the factors’ projections, utilities typically do not consider how a catastrophic event, such as a natural disaster or act of terrorism, would affect the system. This is why critical service providers have increasingly considered a fourth factor in their decision-making and planning efforts: resiliency.