Utilities are facing serious challenges, including population growth, climate change, and aging infrastructure. Many water systems operate with a siloed approach to managing drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater. A more adaptive approach will focus on identifying opportunities for collaboration between stakeholders at a watershed scale and developing solutions that address multiple challenges at once. This integrated approach, where all water sources, regardless of origin, are valued, has become to known as One Water. However, there is currently limited guidance available to water systems regarding how to implement One Water practices. A list of 29 potential One Water Strategies was identified based on literature and surveys of 35 municipal representatives from British Columbia (BC), Canada. Each strategy was evaluated by these representatives’ considering sustainability, resiliency, and reliability. The 3 highest ranked strategies were rapid recovery from natural calamities, water leakage reduction, and public willingness to change behavior. Additionally, an index was developed to benchmark the One Water performance of 12 BC municipalities. The results suggested that many utilities were already promoting inter-departmental collaboration and practicing equitable water management strategies that assisted them in achieving their long-term One Water goals. Those water systems that received the highest index value were also implementing low impact development and utilizing web-based portals for data sharing and tracking. This index is now available for other utilities to assess their One Water performance. This presentation will be of interest to water managers and other decision makers aiming to build more sustainable and resilient One Water systems.
