Developing a tool to measure the organizational resilience of Tanzania's water supply systems

Abstract

Confronted with serious environmental challenges, water supply organizations in Tanzania struggle to prioritize and allocate resources to building resilience to floods so that they can provide uninterrupted service or resume services after a crisis in a timely manner. A study of the key indicators and principles of organizational resilience, combined with input from a panel of water industry experts, led to the development of a tool to gauge organizational resilience that was tested with data from a Tanzanian water authority. Awareness of environmental issues, having an emergency response plan in place, providing staff and the public with opportunities to learn more about building resiliency, clear and ongoing communications, and strong leadership emerged as the most important indicators for measuring the organizational resilience of water supply systems. Encompassing change readiness, leadership and culture, legal frameworks and institutional setup, and networks and relationships, the assessment tool that was developed can guide water authority managers worldwide in developing processes to ensure uninterrupted service to their communities.

Resilience to flood hazards: Awareness for the water supply infrastructure

“…Out of the 80 respondents initially approached to participate in the study, 70 responded, making a response rate of 88%. This response rate aligns with Sweya et al (2020a) and Sweya and Wilkinson (2020) whose Delphi studies attained at least 72.7% response rates as they developed tools for measuring resilience of water supply systems and were considered sufficient. It is also consistent to Mugenda (2009) suggesting that the response is good enough for studies of this magnitudes.…”

“…The factors were evaluated based on a 5‐point Likert scale ranging from 1‐strongly disagree, 2‐disagree, 3‐neither agree nor disagree, 4‐agree and 5‐strongly agree. The factors were considered significant and relevant when at least 70% of the respondent agreed or strongly agreed on their importance (Zhong et al, 2015; Sweya et al, 2020a, 2020b; Sweya and Wilkinson, 2020). As such, all factors were considered as significant as ratings were 83%—ageing infrastructures and poor maintenance culture, 75%—unbalanced investment, 82%—limited community involvement, 75%—rapid population growth and urbanization, 89%—limited financial resources, 76%—destruction of infrastructure, 80%—unchecked environmental drainage, 85%—poor and inadequate infrastructure to support rapid urbanization and 77%—low laying nature of Dar es Salaam.…”

“…The indicators were derived from the literature review. The indicators were selected based on their validity, sensitivity, reproducibility, availability, affordability, simplicity and relevance (Morley, 2012; Sweya et al, 2020a). Such indicators were considered by researchers adequate to systematically obtain the WSPI resilience insights from the experts.…”

“…Dar es Salaam has been chosen due to the high population served, and the vast funds invested on the city’s water supply system. Besides, the City is one of the areas exposed and highly affected by floods, and likely to experience more risks due to coastal storms such as those affected the neighbouring countries—Mozambique and Zimbabwe (Sweya et al, 2020a). The city’s is population of 4 369 541 (URT, 2012) nearing 6 million at present.…”

“…Strong WSPI exhibit resilience characteristics, enabling them to survive the impacts of disasters. Despite the usefulness of the concept, a universal explanation/definition for resilience is lacking due to different scientific perspectives as applied in various systems (Vugrin et al, 2010; Sweya et al , 2020a; Sweya and Wilkinson, 2020). Several definitions can be found in literature.…”