Water Infrastructure’s 20th Century Challenge for the 21st Century

Although we live in the 21st century, we still use most twentieth-century water infrastructure.

The aging infrastructure, population growth that raised the water demands, and climate change pose challenges to water infrastructure. Yet, many communities in the United States still lack access to safe drinking water.

During the twentieth century, extensive water infrastructure like water treatment facilities, distribution, and dams were designed and built.

The article from the Roanoke Times writes about water infrastructure design in the twentieth century to address the need for water demands during that period.

It says, “Twentieth-century water infrastructure planning and design are based on separate systems for drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater runoff from urbanized areas.” But these designs still need to be improved to meet the twenty-first-century challenges and goals.  

Today, we source our drinking water from surface water like lakes and rivers and underground supplies like aquifers. After undergoing some treatment, our used water or wastewater is returned to surface water, and it is the same with stormwater runoff. 

The articles say stormwater runoff, usually treated as waste, can greatly source more sustainable water supplies in cities. When it rains, water can be collected at the start – like the ancient practices of collecting water using underground aqueducts and cisterns to provide water demands for the population.

Tapping this resource offers many benefits. First, it can reduce energy use from extracting and transporting water from surface and underground sources. Secondly, stormwater decreases consumption from these traditional sources, and lastly, capturing stormwater can also be a flood mitigation and control measure. 

The twenty-first century also offers advances in water treatment technologies, including desalination, that allow the recycling or reuse of stormwater and wastewater for various purposes – drinking, recreation, and agriculture.   

The challenges from climate change in the form of prolonged and intensifying droughts, heatwaves, and heavy rainfalls, plus the rising demands from population growth and industrial and agricultural usage, places significant strains on our water infrastructure. However, technological advances and innovation in water treatment, reuse, and recycling provide us with solutions to tackle the twenty-first challenges we face today.  

Infrastructure asset management planning incorporates the examination of future demand trends and requirements. This analysis includes how non-asset solutions can be implemented and how recycling, reuse and sustainable practices can be incorporated into solving predicted demand issues.