Rethinking Resilience: How utilities are delivering the future of water

Athens and Los Angeles. These two cities are thousands of kilometers apart, operating in vastly different contexts but pointing in the same direction. Resilience is the key to future operations.

These cities are rethinking how they plan, fund, and deploy water and wastewater systems to keep communities safe and supplied. Athens is scaling water reuse and desalination while restoring historic aqueducts. Los Angeles is rolling out a new generation of digital infrastructure to reduce leaks and diversify supply.

That shift is the focus of Rethinking Resilience, a new report from Xylem and Global Water Intelligence. The data reveals a clear gap: cities are projected to invest $401 billion in water infrastructure in 2025, but meeting future demand with legacy approaches would require $1.5 trillion a year. Smarter strategies can reduce that number to $720 billion.

The stakes are high, and so is the potential. Drawing on analysis of over 1,000 utility capital plans and insights from leaders across five continents, the report explores how utilities are embedding resilience into infrastructure planning – and what it takes to deliver at scale.

Resilience as a core capability

For decades, utilities have relied on stable conditions. That model no longer fits today’s needs.

Utilities are working in a new operating environment that calls for a strategic reset. Resilience has moved from an aspiration to a design requirement. It is now central to how utilities deliver long-term value.

That expanded role goes beyond pipes and pumps. Utilities, once tasked simply with delivering water and sanitation, are now reimagining entire urban systems.

Take New York, where the city’s Department of Environmental Protection has incorporated stormwater and coastal resilience into its capital planning. It’s not just about reacting to new risks – it’s about building flexible systems that serve communities more equitably and sustainably.

In Sydney, a long-term capital plan backed by regulatory alignment and financial autonomy has enabled a threefold increase in infrastructure investment over the next decade, focused on decentralization, diversification, and water reuse.

These plans show that resilience is not just a concept – it’s a capability, measured not only by how systems resist disruption but also by how quickly and effectively they can adapt, restart, and rebuild.

This isn’t about doing more with less. It’s about doing things differently.

Four paths to scalable resilience

The report shows that nearly half of all utility capital spending by 2030 is expected to focus on resilience. Many are doing this by:

• Embedding resilience into long-term planning. In Austin, Texas, a century-spanning Water Forward plan is guiding investment across decades, not just the next budget cycle.
  
  
• Unlocking new financial tools. Cities like Athens and Sydney are leveraging diverse funding sources, from developer contributions to infrastructure bonds, to support resilient growth.
  
  
• Improving institutional coordination. In New York, cross-departmental alignment is key to scaling solutions that span water, transportation, and emergency response.
  
  
• Prioritizing infrastructure that delivers multiple benefits. From green stormwater systems in Tarragona to smart sewers in Valencia, utilities are choosing investments that lower risk, reduce costs, and improve quality of life.

Utility leaders are solving common challenges in ways that are local, practical, and scalable. They’re finding ways to act faster, to build smarter, and to align across agencies, sectors, and communities.

They are demonstrating that the answer isn’t simply to spend more but to spend smarter – on solutions that prioritize resilience, flexibility, and long-term value over reactive fixes.

A roadmap for the future

The Rethinking Resilience report is a roadmap for doing exactly that. It surfaces the opportunity: to design infrastructure that works better, costs less over time, and delivers shared value.

Because when we invest in resilience, we’re not just protecting infrastructure. We’re investing in the future of our communities.

Explore how leading cities are turning resilience into reality. Download the full Rethinking Resilience report to learn more about the global insights, trends, and case studies guiding this transformation.