Over the next 3 days the Global Knowledge Exchange is bringing together City and other stakeholders to share best practice and co-design final project outputs for the City Water Resilience Framework (CWRF) (100 Resilient Cities) and the Resilience Shift’s Governance for Resilient Water Systems (Lloyd’s Register Foundation) projects. Aine Nibhreasail shares news from Day 1’s session on cities.

Water resilience is the issue that connects our cities across the globe. Today we heard

• 1 in every 10 glasses of water in Cape Town is through desalination.
• Miami estimates are 70% greater impact onto infrastructure if it wasn’t for natural systems attenuating storm surges.
• 95% of Hull City is below high tide level…climate change predictions illustrate that if we don’t invest most of our city will be under water.
• Jordan is one of the most water scarce countries in the world…the water system uses 20% of energy as there are massive interdependencies with the energy system.
• Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world now (22 million people) and has seen a transformation from a lake basin to a dried basin.

The Global Knowledge Exchange opened this morning with introductions from Ruth Boumphrey (Director of research at Lloyd’s Register Foundation), Juliet Mian (Technical Director of the Resilience Shift) and Mark Fletcher (Global Water Leader at Arup).

The exchange of knowledge started with presentations from Cape Town, Miami, Amman, Hull and Mexico telling us about the water systems in their cities. They are subject to a variety of shocks and stresses, ranging from severe drought to sea level rise and flash flooding.

The five cities shared inspiring success stories.

Cayley Green explained how the Day Zero campaign in Cape Town managed to reduce water consumption by 50% in 3 years.

Hull’s Alex Codd highlighted the successful multi-agency collaboration between Hull City Council, Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency.

Debbie Griner from Miami set out how their robust system to monitor salt front migration works in almost real time.

Participants heard from the Resilience Shift’s Alexa Bruce about the remarkable capacity of individuals working in the Amman water sector to respond to cascading interdependencies.

Finally, Arnoldo Matus Kramer from Mexico City shared their water strategy for urban development. It will allow them to balance the needs and growth of other basins that Mexico relies on, and recognise trade-offs of different actions.

The lively panel discussion chaired by Fred Boltz also included Diego Rodriguez (World Bank, Mexico) and Tariq Kaawash (Amman) and over the next 3 days the Global Knowledge Exchange is bringing together these City and other stakeholders to share best practice and co-design final project outputs for the City Water Resilience Framework and Governance for Resilient Water Systems projects.

Follow our event on @resilienceshift or subscribe to our blog for more about the work of the Resilience Shift. The event is being hosted by Lloyd’s Register Foundation.