Defining Equity and Resilience for Drinking Water Distribution Systems

Given their importance to public health, resilient and equitable delivery of safe, clean drinking water through water distribution system (WDS) infrastructure is critically important to the communities they serve. Resilience and equity are often considered interchangeable by system managers but are distinct concepts. This confusion leads to misperceptions that can hinder the implementation of both goals in planning, designing, and maintaining community WDS. This talk will highlight initial efforts to provide consistent metrics for WDS resilience and equity. The work is part of a broader community-engaged research effort to implement resilient infrastructure driven by social equity in Kansas communities. A literature meta-analysis was conducted on the use of equity and resilience concepts in WDS systems. A Boolean search was executed with search terms including equity, resilience, water access, water security, water policy, water supply, and framework. Results were filtered to only include articles related to drinking water and water distribution. The 103 articles found were analyzed through a coding scheme, which put particular focus on papers that developed a definition of, and assessment framework for, resilience and equity. While the majority of articles found did not provide specific definitions of resilience or equity, a framework was developed for 31.1% of the papers for resilience, 7.7% for equity, and 2.9% for both. The metrics used in these frameworks will allow the larger project to utilize more encompassing definitions of resilience and equity in further research.