Basics of Water Resilience

What is Water Resilience?

Water resilience refers to the ability of water and wastewater utilities to withstand and quickly recover from natural and human-made disasters. Increasing resilience at your utility will help safeguard access to safe drinking water and properly treated wastewater. Check out the video below to learn about the importance of resilience activities at your utility. 

"Don't Get Soaked: Invest in Emergency Preparedness, Prevention and Mitigation Activities" educates drinking water and wastewater utility managers, board members, elected and appointed officials on the benefits of investing in preparedness, response and recovery activities at the utility (runtime 9:14 min).

How can I build resilience at my water utility?

EPA’s Water Resilience Homepage has many free tools and resources on a variety of topics related to water resilience. Feel free to browse EPA’s resources for resilience topics that are of most interest to you.

If you would like to learn about water resilience through a structured course, EPA’s Water/Wastewater Utility All-Hazards Bootcamp is a great starting point. This course, designed for water and wastewater employees responsible for emergency response and recovery activities, explains why and how to implement an all-hazards program.  

Roadmap to a Secure and Resilient Water Sector

The Water Sector Coordinating Council (WSCC) and Water Government Coordinating Council (WGCC) together developed the  2024 Roadmap to a Secure and Resilient Water and Wastewater Sector which identifies the joint priority activity areas needed to improve Water and Wastewater Sector resilience. Check out the roadmap to learn about the top activity areas that were identified.