Assessment and Risk Management for Integrated Water Services

Drinking water supply and waste water networks and treatment systems provide essential services to the community. These infrastructures are vulnerable and subject to a wide range of risks; damage and operation interruptions that require immediate restoration and management of the emergency, may occur. The vulnerability of water supply systems is nowadays the focus of attention of everyone responsible for their security and good performance. Direct effects caused by disasters involve the physical damage to the infrastructure while indirect damage is linked to the additional expenses that the water companies need to incur in order to respond to the emergency, as well as the loss of revenue due to the interruption of their services. The analysis and risk assessment for the Integrated Water Services relating to natural hazards and/ or human origin threats is based upon the equation that correlates the risk to the probability of occurrence of an adverse event, the vulnerability and the consequences. The paper presents an overview of the general framework and the risk tools useful for the risk management for Integrated Water Services.