Batten Down the Hatches-Assessing the Status of Emergency Preparedness Planning in the German Water Supply Sector with Statistical and Expert-Based Weighting

Emergency preparedness planning in the water supply sector includes preventive measures to minimize risks as well as aspects of crisis management. Various scenarios such as floods, power failures or even a pandemic should be considered. This article presents a newly developed composite indicator system to assess the status of emergency preparedness planning in the German water supply. Two weighting methods of the indicators are compared: the indicator system was applied to a case study and a Germany-representative data set. The results show that there is a need for action in emergency preparedness planning in the German water supply. This is in particular due to a lack of risk analyses and insufficient crisis management. Numerous water supply companies and municipalities are already well-prepared, however, there is a need for action at several levels, especially in the area of risk analysis and evaluation of measures. In Germany, responsibility for this lies primarily with the municipalities.