How Climate Smart Utilities Are Transforming Water and Wastewater Management

By aya mohsen Last updated Aug 5, 2025 619 0

Contents

1 Climate Smart Utilities

1.1 Three Pillars of Climate-Smart Utilities:

2 Climate Smart Utilities: Building Resilience and Reducing Emissions

3 Climate Smart Irrigation: Boosting Water and Land Productivity

3.1 Our climate-smart irrigation options include:

4 What Is Climate Smart Agriculture?

4.1 There are three main objectives of climate smart agriculture:

5 Conclusion

6 References

Utilities are urged to increase their resilience to the impacts of climate change to maintain and improve their service levels. The emissions reported by water and wastewater utilities in various countries vary from 3 to 7% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Climate Smart Utilities

With urgent action needed on mitigation and adaptation, the International Water Association is calling on utilities around the world, regardless of their size or location, to endorse a shared vision to build momentum for greater progress. Taking a holistic water cycle approach that encompasses emissions from unconnected residential areas, discharge of untreated sewage into rivers, and industrial treatment facilities would significantly amplify the contribution of GHG emissions. Therefore, utilities are critical to the cities’ successful climate adaptation and should act towards global decarbonization.

Three Pillars of Climate-Smart Utilities:

By endorsing the vision, you act as a Climate Smart player, providing inspiration and momentum for all utilities worldwide to achieve the cultural shift needed on three interconnected pillars:

1- Adaptation: Improving resilience to adapt to climate change.

2- Mitigation: Assessing and aiming to reduce GHG emissions

3- Leadership: Leading and inspiring others to take climate-smart action for a water-wise future

Climate Smart Utilities: Building Resilience and Reducing Emissions

Climate Smart Utilities are water, sanitation, and urban drainage service providers that are improving their climate resilience by adapting to a changing climate while contributing to a significant and sustainable reduction of carbon emissions. The initiative is structured around four components:

1- Community of Practice (CoP) around adaptation and mitigation to climate change, to support bridging science and practice and trigger the necessary cultural shifts and actions.

2- A web platform to support information sharing among utilities.

3- A utility leaders peer-to-peer exchange program platform to drive decision-making and climate leadership.

4- A recognition program to increase awareness and set an inspiration to progress on the Climate Smart Utility journey.

Climate Smart Irrigation: Boosting Water and Land Productivity

ICARDA’s climate-smart water irrigation improves on-farm water use and management efficiency for higher water and land productivity. Integrated innovations include maximizing in-situ storage of water through conservation interventions, fine-tuning when and how to irrigate to produce “more yield per drop,” and where and how to source water.

Our climate-smart irrigation options include:

-Optimal irrigation using minimal water to grow crops profitably while reducing water waste;

-Deficit irrigation to supply minimal water only at drought-sensitive growth stages;

-Irrigation timing to balance plant needs with different day and seasonal evapotranspiration times;

-Balancing water use against what can be grown in different soil fertility levels;

-Responsive varieties and strategies to reduce water footprint, maximizing water productivity, and avoiding climate extremes.

Our water-saving technologies include water-harvesting and water-conservation techniques in rain-fed agriculture and exploring the safe use of treated wastewater to produce more feed, forage, and trees. We also advise on appropriate diversification of cropping systems in water-scarce environments and power alternatives for water circulation in off-grid settings.

What Is Climate Smart Agriculture?

Climate smart agriculture is a comprehensive strategy for managing farmlands, crops, livestock, and forests that counteracts the negative impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity.

There are three main objectives of climate smart agriculture:

1-Productivity. By enhancing crop and livestock production and farm profitability, climatically smart agriculture works to raise overall agricultural productivity and provide greater food security.

2- Adaptation. Climate smart agriculture aims to fortify agricultural infrastructure against the destructive effects of global warming.

This entails taking measures to minimize susceptibility to climate-related threats like floods, droughts, or extreme heat.

3- Mitigation. One of the primary goals of climatically smart agriculture is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere because of farming activities, including methane emissions from livestock, paddy rice cultivation, and synthetic fertilizer use.

Conclusion

Climate-smart water and agriculture facilities are a proactive approach to addressing the challenges of climate change, improving resilience, reducing emissions, and inspiring others to achieve a sustainable future. Through adaptation, mitigation, and leadership, these initiatives can significantly contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and protecting natural resources for future generations.

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