Recommended Improvements to Water supply
In order to improve the supply of water, the company first needs to need to increase its water storage capacity. This can be achieved by constructing large reservoirs and investing in large capacity tanks to hold the water at the company. This will help its surface water system to collect large amounts of water all year round and then supply to its customers that have intermittent need of water in short periods of time. As for customers that have constant need for water like power plants, the company will have to see to it that its surface water system only has sufficient storage capacity to compensate it when average stream flow falls below the customer’s need.
In addition, the water company ought to put into consideration the long term need of maintaining constant supply of water to its customers. The company can achieve this by investing in the preservation of natural water sheds from which it draws its commercial product. As such, the company should put in effort to contribute greatly to environmental preservation programs such as reafforestration. Likewise, it should make efforts to augment the natural surface water through such measures as importing the surface water from other watersheds via a canal or pipeline.
Another viable option which the water company can adopt to improve the supply of the product is through increased desalination (Gleick, 2008). The company can invest heavily in the conversion of saline sea wate which is found in plenty into fresh consumable water. This can be easily achieved through distillation as well as reverse osmosis. This would be especially economically sound for those high-valued customers such as industrial and household uses located in arued areas such as the Persian Gulf.
Furthermore, the company can realized improved water supply to its customers if it makes use of icebergs as reliable source of water. It would help if the company explored the possibilities of frozen water (Browder & Xie, 2007).
In general, therefore, the water company would best address the issues pertaining to insufficient supply of water by making sure to reduce the water losses besides stepping up leakage detection. It is also incumbent on the water company to engage and communicate to its customers so as they are in a position to have a clear picture of the currennt water situation as well encourage them to use water responsibly. It is also advisable for the water companu to co-ordinate temporary restrictions pertaining to water use such as bans on hosepipes where appropriate. Such restrictions are under the mandate of water companies and do not require the approval of the Environment Agency or the Government. Finally, the water company should make sure it keeps up to date with forecasts on rain and drought situations so that it can plan for any eventualities in time so that sufficient water supply to customers is maintained throughout (Gleick, 2008).
To this end, it is apparent that the there is need for more competitiveness in the entire water industry so that water companies like this one will be pushed more to improve its general water supply. Similarly, cheaper water services would be reliazed through increased competition in purchasing inputs, basing on competitive for the right to supply water to an area, as well as benchmarking rival utilities in varied areas. This way the company will do its very best so as to remain relevant in the competitive water industry.
References:
Browder, Greg, & Xie, Shiqing. (2007). Stepping Up: Improving the Performance of China’s Urban Water Utilities. Washington, World Bank Publications.
Gleick, H. Peter, Cooley, Heather, morikawa, Mari. (2008). The World’s Water 2008-2009: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Washington, Island Press.
