By James Chalmers, Global Segment Manager – Water & Wastewater, ABB Drive Products

World Water Day is an annual reminder that access to safe water cannot be taken for granted – and in an ever-more-unpredictable climate, the issue has never been more urgent. In 2026, access means nothing if harsh weather conditions can cut it off at any moment.

It seems like every month, flooding takes out wastewater treatment plants overnight somewhere in the world. Hurricanes, once-in-a-thousand year storms, and weather patterns so routine they’re called rainy seasons regularly submerge facilities for days. Droughts deplete aquifers to levels where water becomes undrinkable. And each time these events strike, millions lose access to their most basic need: safe, clean water.

The uncomfortable truth is that water infrastructure was designed to handle extreme events – the once-in-a-millennium storms that once defined engineering standards. But years of underinvestment and aging equipment have degraded that capability precisely as climate patterns make severe weather more frequent. Building resilience into water and wastewater systems starts with the equipment that controls them: the drives that form the operational backbone of every pump and treatment process.

When harsh weather meets critical infrastructure

Severe weather events are one of the greatest threats to continuous water access, and they attack from multiple directions. Flooding damages equipment, contaminates clean water supplies, overwhelms treatment capacity with storm water runoff, and creates the very conditions that make safe water treatment most difficult precisely when it’s most needed.

Droughts present an equally serious challenge to water quality. As reservoirs drop and aquifers deplete, the concentration of contaminants increases. Utilities, industrial manufacturing, and farming operations must draw from deeper sources, potentially pulling in even more sediments and contaminants that require additional treatment. Pumping from these depths creates multiple compounding challenges: significantly higher energy costs, greater mechanical stress on equipment, and serious health risks if treatment processes cannot remove the additional contaminants. Water being available is one thing; ensuring it remains safe for consumption is another thing entirely.

Water treatment offers no margin for failure. When a manufacturing line goes down, production is delayed. When water treatment stops, taps run dry, toilets can’t flush, and public health is immediately at risk. There are no acceptable downtime periods, no environmentally safe shortcuts. Access must be continuous, regardless of conditions.

The dirty power problem

When storms strike and degrade power quality, treatment plants face massive storm water inflows that demand reliable operation. This is when continued operation is most critical. Pump and blower systems require clean, stable electricity, and when power quality drops, they shut down as a protective measure. Lightning strikes and grid fluctuations create what we call “dirty power” conditions that can trip conventional equipment offline. Emergency generators, while essential as backup power sources, can also produce power quality issues that sensitive equipment struggles to handle.

One solution lies in Ultra Low Harmonic (ULH) drive technology that maintains operation even when grid conditions are sub-optimal. ABB’s ACQ580 water and wastewater drives are a prime example. They continue operating through voltage dips of 20% – the exact conditions that force conventional equipment offline during storms. Technologies like this can be the difference between maintaining treatment during severe weather and a facility going offline right when local communities need water the most.

For complete power loss scenarios, ACQ580 drives with seamless generator operation capability allow emergency backup systems to keep pumps and blowers running without interruption. Built-in transient protection eliminates water hammer through controlled soft-start ramping, preventing the pressure spikes that crack aging pipes during startup. And because severe weather often causes blockages where they’ve never occurred before, the drives include automatic jam detection and pump clean reversal functions that clear obstructions without the operator needing to intervene.

These aren’t generic industrial drives adapted for water – they’re designed from the ground up with water-specific functions, with optional IP66 ratings for water ingress, and validated against the exact chemical, gas, and temperature conditions that wastewater facilities might experience. When access to safe water depends on equipment that simply cannot fail, standardisation on proven, resilient technology becomes the foundation of climate preparedness.

Built for the harshest environments

Water and wastewater treatment facilities operate in hostile conditions. Hydrogen sulfide gas in wastewater environments corrodes standard electronics. Acids and treatment chemicals create aggressive atmospheres. Equipment must withstand temperature extremes while maintaining precise process control.

Chemical and gas-resistant drives rated with optional IP66 standards are fundamental requirements for guaranteeing continuous operation. At ABB’s Quality and Reliability Laboratory in Helsinki, drives and other equipment is tested specifically for these conditions: exposure to corrosive gases, chemical resistance, temperature cycling from hot to cold. The goal is twofold: to prove that equipment can survive these conditions, and to show it maintains reliable operation throughout them.

Because when facilities are compromised by flooding or operating under extreme temperature conditions during heat waves or cold snaps, equipment can’t simply survive: it must continue guaranteeing safe water treatment without interruption.

Access as a non-negotiable right

As World Water Day 2026 focuses our attention on access to safe water, plants worldwide must confront an uncomfortable reality: guaranteeing access means guaranteeing continuity under any and all conditions. The infrastructure decisions made today will determine whether communities maintain water access during the next flood or drought, or whether they join the growing list of regions where climate makes the taps run dry.

Access to safe water isn’t a nice-to-have dependent on favourable conditions. It’s a fundamental requirement that infrastructure must deliver regardless of what climate throws at it. The technology exists to make that possible. The question is whether we’ll deploy it before the next weather event tests our preparedness.

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