Climate Resilience Index Water 2026: Why Stability Is Not Enough

Public drinking water supply in Germany remains reliable. Even in a summer marked by low water levels, dry soils, wildfires and regional restrictions on water use, overall supply has remained stable. That is a significant achievement by water utilities and reflects decades of investment, technical standards, operational experience and responsible resource management.

At the same time, the DVGW Climate Resilience Index Water 2026 makes one thing clear: stable day-to-day operations should not be mistaken for an all-clear. With a score of 48 out of 100, the overall index is slightly below last year’s value of 49 points. This places the resilience of Germany’s drinking water supply in the medium range. It does not indicate an acute risk to supply, but it does show that utilities expect adaptation pressure to increase.

The index reflects what many utilities are already experiencing in practice. Climate adaptation is no longer an additional task that can be handled alongside everyday operations; it is increasingly becoming part of the core business of water supply itself. A supply system may be robust today and still face structural challenges if peak loads rise, water resources come under greater pressure, investment needs grow, approval procedures take too long or skilled staff become harder to find. Climate resilience therefore involves far more than technical assets. It also depends on resource management, investment planning, staffing, permitting processes and data flows.

What the Climate Resilience Index Measures

The Climate Resilience Index Water was conducted for the second time in 2026. It is based on responses from 227 executives at German drinking water utilities and evaluates 50 indicators across five areas: robustness, level of adaptation, ability to act, regulatory framework and future outlook. The results were weighted according to water supply volume in order to reflect the structure of Germany’s water sector as realistically as possible.

This methodology matters because climate resilience in water supply cannot be reduced to a single metric. A utility may be operating reliably today while still facing significant future adaptation needs. Conversely, a company may already be investing heavily in monitoring, infrastructure or interconnection systems, but still find implementation slowed down by lengthy procedures or a shortage of staff.

The index therefore distinguishes between current resilience, adaptation measures already in place, structural ability to act, regulatory conditions and expected future developments. This broad perspective is what makes the results particularly relevant for the water sector.

Supply Is Stable, but System Reserves Are Coming Under Pressure

At first glance, some of the results are reassuring. The areas of robustness and level of adaptation score 59 and 53 points respectively, placing both above the midpoint of the scale. Water utilities therefore still consider themselves broadly capable of managing today’s pressures.

A closer look, however, reveals a more nuanced picture. Rising peak water demand is assessed particularly critically. Increasing investment needs and the growing use of secured water resources in relation to available daily volumes are also among the key drivers of vulnerability. This shows that the challenge is not only about annual water balances, but increasingly about temporal extremes.

For daily operations, this distinction is crucial. Public discussions often focus on water availability in terms of annual volumes. In practice, however, the decisive moments are increasingly periods of stress: hot days, prolonged dry spells, simultaneous high consumption, declining raw water availability or limited abstraction, pumping and treatment capacities.

A supply area may have sufficient water resources over the course of a year and still come under pressure during specific periods. In those situations, resilience is not determined by average volumes, but by whether water can be provided at the right time, in the required quality and with sufficient technical reserves. This is precisely why water quantity and bottleneck management will become increasingly important.

Adaptation Does Not Only Mean Building New Infrastructure

The index also paints a mixed picture when it comes to adaptation. At 53 points, the level of adaptation remains in the medium range, but it has declined slightly compared with 2025. Larger water utilities in particular assess their level of adaptation more critically than in the previous year. Among utilities with high water supply volumes, the adaptation sub-index has dropped significantly.

This is understandable. Larger utilities often operate more complex supply areas, more extensive infrastructure, more pronounced peak-load situations and larger investment programmes. They are not automatically less resilient, but they often have a clearer view of the adaptations required to keep supply stable under changing climate conditions.

What stands out is that adaptation needs are not limited to new construction. The report points in particular to the modernisation and expansion of existing waterworks, demand-based adjustments to treatment and abstraction capacities, the strengthening of network capacities, additional redundancies, storage and reservoir volumes, and monitoring of expected future changes in raw water quantities and quality.

In other words, climate resilience is not created only through new assets. In many cases, it means making existing infrastructure more robust, more flexible and easier to operate under changing conditions. Existing waterworks need to be operated more flexibly, networks need reserves for periods of stress, storage facilities must be integrated in a way that helps absorb peaks, and interconnected systems can help balance regional differences — provided that planning, resources, approvals and operations work together.

This is where the importance of a solid data basis becomes clear. Utilities that expand waterworks, storage facilities, networks or interconnection systems need to understand which developments are likely, where uncertainty remains and which measures are robust under different scenarios.

Ability to Act Increasingly Depends on People and Processes

The ability-to-act sub-index remains unchanged at 43 points in 2026, below the midpoint of the scale. Water utilities generally see themselves as capable of responding to climate-related challenges, but they also point to clear limits in their internal resources.

This becomes particularly evident when it comes to staff. The availability of human resources is described in the report as a central challenge and is assessed even more critically than financial resources. This is an important finding because climate adaptation is often discussed in terms of infrastructure: wells, storage facilities, pipelines, treatment plants and interconnection systems. All of these measures are necessary, but they do not plan, approve, build or operate themselves.

Utilities need people who can interpret data, assess risks, prioritise measures, evaluate funding options, support permitting procedures, operate assets and translate operational knowledge into decisions. The shortage of skilled labour is therefore becoming a structural risk. When human resources are limited, it is not only day-to-day operations that are affected. Adaptation measures, monitoring, planning and cooperation also become more difficult, while demand for exactly these tasks continues to grow.

The Regulatory Framework Remains a Bottleneck

The most critical sub-index in 2026 is the regulatory framework, with 40 points. Although this value has improved slightly compared with 2025, it remains well below the midpoint of the scale. Lengthy approval and participation procedures, as well as a lack of integrated planning and coordination, are seen as key obstacles.

This is also reflected in the utilities’ open responses. Bureaucracy and administrative effort are named by 15.9 percent of respondents as one of the biggest challenges. When asked about the most important levers for improving adaptability, reducing bureaucracy ranks third, after infrastructure investment and financial support, with 16.3 percent.

For the water sector, this is more than an administrative issue. Climate adaptation requires lead time. Utilities that want to create additional abstraction capacities, build storage facilities, establish interconnection systems or adapt treatment plants operate in complex approval environments. If procedures take too long, a gap emerges between recognised adaptation needs and actual implementation.

At the same time, the results show that cooperation and supply concepts are assessed more positively than other aspects of the regulatory framework. This is an important starting point: climate resilience cannot be achieved by individual utilities alone. It requires regional coordination, shared planning foundations and a common understanding of how water availability, demand, infrastructure and protection interests interact.

The Biggest Challenges: Water Availability, Infrastructure and Peak Demand

The open responses in the DVGW report clearly show where utilities see the greatest pressure. The most frequently mentioned challenges are declining water availability, cited by 20.3 percent of respondents, infrastructure expansion at 17.2 percent and rising peak demand, also at 17.2 percent. These are followed by bureaucracy and administrative effort, financing needs and a lack of funding, as well as securing water rights.

When asked about the most important levers, utilities name infrastructure investment, financial support, reducing bureaucracy, protecting water resources and building interconnected supply systems. Public awareness and the recruitment of skilled staff also play a role. In other words, the sector has a clear understanding of where action is needed.

The real challenge lies in implementing these measures in time, with secure funding, approvals and coordination. This requires robust decision-making foundations. Where is investment most urgent? Which water resource is particularly sensitive? Where are future bottlenecks likely to occur? Which measure only solves a local problem, and which one strengthens the system as a whole? What risks emerge when several pressures occur at the same time?

Without connected data, questions like these quickly become case-by-case decisions.

Why Data Is Becoming the Connecting Element

The Climate Resilience Index shows in several places that data is no longer just supporting material. It is becoming a foundation for adaptation. It also shows that the relevant challenges cannot be viewed in isolation: peak loads are linked to weather, consumption patterns, network capacities and storage. Investment needs are linked to infrastructure condition, raw water availability, treatment requirements and approval procedures. Skilled-labour shortages affect operations, monitoring, planning and implementation. And the regulatory framework influences how quickly necessary measures can actually be realised.

Anyone seeking to strengthen climate resilience must be able not only to explain developments retrospectively, but also to assess them with a view to the future. Isolated measurements are not enough for that. Climate-resilient water supply depends on bringing together different types of data: hydrological data, operational data, infrastructure data, quality data, consumption data, spatial data, climate data, permitting information and practical knowledge from operations. Only when these elements are viewed together does a meaningful picture of system resilience emerge.

This is one of the biggest practical hurdles. Much of the required information already exists, but it is distributed across control systems, GIS applications, laboratory and monitoring databases, approval documents, operational reports, spreadsheets, expert assessments and different authorities or stakeholders. As long as this data remains separated, assessments remain fragmented as well.

For individual tasks, that may still work. For climate resilience, it is no longer enough.

Climate Resilience Is More Than a Technical Operating Issue

One of the key conclusions of the DVGW report is that climate resilience in drinking water supply will increasingly have to be understood less as a purely technical operating issue and more as an integrated task involving investment, resources, personnel and governance.

This is an important perspective because it broadens the discussion. Water supply does not remain resilient simply because individual systems function reliably today. It remains resilient when water resources are protected, infrastructure is developed further, skilled staff are secured, procedures are accelerated, regional cooperation is strengthened and data is used more effectively.

The Climate Resilience Index Water 2026 is therefore more than an industry metric. It shows where public water supply is stable today and where the conditions need to be created so that it remains stable under more challenging climate conditions in the future.