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X-WR-CALNAME:Session 1: Foundation Panel — The Changing Role of Water Regulation
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Asia/Riyadh
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TZID:Asia/Riyadh
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DTSTART:19700101T000000
TZOFFSETFROM:+0300
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UID:wc-session-64596@idraworldcongress.org
DTSTAMP:20260915T232939Z
DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Riyadh:20261101T093000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Riyadh:20261101T103000
SUMMARY:Session 1: Foundation Panel — The Changing Role of Water Regulat
 ion
LOCATION:Plenary Theater
DESCRIPTION:Water regulation is at a turning point. Regulatory frameworks 
 designed for an era of relative water abundance and predictable supply mu
 st now respond to scarcity\, climate uncertainty\, new technologies\, and
  increasingly diverse water portfolios. As utilities combine conventional
  sources with desalination\, reuse and demand management\, regulators are
  no longer simply overseeing existing systems\, they are helping shape ho
 w future water supplies are developed\, financed and secured.\n\nWhy regu
 lation is changing\n\nThe regulatory model built through the 1990s and 20
 00s was constructed around a defined set of tasks: setting tariffs\, issu
 ing licenses\, and monitoring compliance against them. It was a coherent 
 answer to the conditions of its time\, and those conditions have since ch
 anged. Social expectations have moved\, so that legitimacy\, affordabilit
 y and public trust now shape the space in which regulators operate as muc
 h as economic considerations do. Technology has advanced\, so that data\,
  metering\, digital operations and manufactured supply have expanded what
  a regulator is able to observe and therefore able to require. And the co
 nfiguration of water systems has altered\, so that supply is increasingly
  drawn from a portfolio of conventional\, desalinated\, reused and demand
 -managed sources\, each carrying a different cost\, contractual and risk 
 profile.\n\nThe question this session puts to the Exchange is not whether
  regulation should be improved\, but why an approach that worked is provi
 ng harder to sustain. The foundational question is therefore: how must wa
 ter regulation evolve to enable innovation\, investment\, resilience and 
 public value while maintaining trust and accountability?\n\nThe three the
 mes\n\nThe session sets out the three themes that structure the Exchange.
  Each is introduced here\, carried through the regional and thematic sess
 ions of the day\, and returned to in the closing synthesis.\n\n• Theme 
 1. Why approaches that once worked are proving harder to sustain. What as
 sumptions behind established regulatory approaches are proving hardest to
  sustain?\n• Theme 2. The implications of the emerging use of desalinat
 ion for the regulation of water and wastewater services. As desalination 
 and reuse grow\, where does regulatory influence weaken across the water 
 value chain?\n• Theme 3. From integration in principle to integration i
 n practice. What does effective\, system-wide regulation need to deliver 
 in practice\, in efficiency\, resilience\, investment confidence and publ
 ic value?\n\nWhat the panel is asked to do\n\nBeyond the diagnosis\, the 
 panel is asked to look forward\, deliberately at the opening rather than 
 at the close. Panelists are asked to describe the regulation they expect 
 to be needed a decade from now: the mandates regulators will have to hold
 \, the instruments they will need\, the capacities they will have to buil
 d\, and the institutional arrangements that do not yet exist.
URL:https://idraworldcongress.org/session/pc07-session-1-north-and-south-america-water-regulation-models/
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