Social infrastructure for smart water management

Written by: Aya,

CMO

“Social infrastructure”

Came across this term before? I’ve spared you the time and Googled it already. Most search results return details around “the infrastructure assets that provide services for society.”

Sounds boring, right? Let’s take this concept one level higher.

The Gap in Traditional Infrastructure Management

Public infrastructure is typically operated and maintained by the government. Overwhelming workloads make proper management difficult. As a result, infrastructure systems break down faster.

How can we avoid this mismanagement of public commodities like water networks?

Communities benefit from these services, but where does the community stand in this value chain? Why doesn’t the community participate in managing these assets? What potential are we missing through this traditional asset management approach?

Here’s what we’re exploring: how community involvement influences decision-making.

Building Infrastructure on Firm Foundations

Now is the time for the community to take action.

Simple contributions like water leak reporting and raising claims have the potential to significantly improve water network operations. This is the essence of social infrastructure: engaging society to unlock sustainable resource management.

In the past, the focus was on increasing revenues regardless of public interest. This model was dominant at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, but it failed. The solution is to follow a sustainable approach that puts people first.

Social infrastructure focuses on people, not structures. It starts with a simple idea: public entities should serve their communities and take responsibility for doing so.

Water utilities, for example, need to take responsibility and support the community by providing adequate water supply. But they often face difficulties putting this into practice.

Why Utilities Struggle to Take Responsibility

The challenge often comes down to organizational structure. Many water utilities often lack clear processes for making decisions. Teams work in silos instead of deciding together.

Water utilities tend to focus on daily operations. They’re overwhelmed by workload, which diverts their attention from strategic issues. Written procedures help get things more organized and lead to more active decision-making.

To overcome these obstacles, water utilities can involve stakeholders in achieving their goals and contributing to improvement.

Making Community Engagement Work

That’s not as difficult as you think.

Communities want to participate in making things better. They’re most motivated where water problems affect their daily life. Water availability is essential, so people instinctively work on improving it as much as they can.

Communities need to develop a sense of ownership of public commodities and infrastructure. How can we leverage this sense of ownership to get tangible outcomes and ultimately improve people’s lives?

Here are simple steps to engage the community and support utilities in improving water supply:

Reporting issues and leaks.
Raising claims.
Supporting daily operations through voluntary work.

To put it simply, we need the community to work with utilities on collective follow-up through:

Holding water utilities accountable to push for performance improvements.
Proactively participating in operations and daily activities through voluntary work and reporting issues.
Getting involved in decision-making to drive more impact.

Taking Social Infrastructure to the Next Level

To take this concept further, water utilities need to blend with the community. They need to feel like and act as part of the community, so they start getting a clear understanding of people’s concerns.

Only then can they lead for impact and become active in the decision-making process.

Water utilities often apply ad-hoc solutions that reduce the effectiveness of their improvement interventions. On the contrary, initiatives that come from the community are more organic. They come from a deep understanding of the context and awareness of needs.

This makes them more sustainable, effective, and progressive.

Here’s the roadmap:

Listen to the community’s needs and understand them clearly.
Assess these needs and set priorities.
Design interventions based on needs assessment, priorities, and suggested solutions.
Start implementing the applicable solutions.

How to Apply This Context

So now you have the blueprints. How do you start building?

The answer is social responsibility. Social entrepreneurs are taking the lead and filling the gaps. They thrive on giving back to the community and contribute to building resilience through home-grown initiatives.

This is the core of our work at Flowless.

Flowless integrates technology and social responsibility to help water utilities improve water efficiency. We go beyond smart water technology through our innovative approach to facilitate smooth technology adoption and overcome financial limitations.

Working hand in hand with utilities and the community is the key to effective and sustainable water infrastructure management.