Water Authority of Fiji, CEO Amit Chanan

Water Authority of Fiji is grappling with significant challenges to ensure proper water supply to customers along the Suva-Nausori corridor due to the lack of water supply diversification and redundancy.

This, according to CEO Amit Chanan.

In an interview with FBC News, Chanan highlighted that the organization had to run a treatment plant at 110 per cent capacity to bridge a daily supply gap of 3 million liters.

He states that the absence of supply diversification means that if the only river supplying water gets affected, the entire Suva system will be impacted.

“We will get a different river and is a much secure water supply and in context of climate change we are actually building the in text section almost 50km upstream of the river mouth, so rising in sea level, tidal influence will be out of that influence zone so that will certainly build our resilience.”

To address this issue, Chanan says the Authority is building a new supply scheme at Rewa, which aims to diversify its water supply from the Rewa River and improve its supply resilience.

He says that the Rewa River is a more secure water supply, and the project’s location upstream of the river mouth will protect it from rising sea levels and tidal influence.

However, Chanan believes that more needs to be done to ensure water supply sustainability.

The CEO suggested rainwater harvesting and exploring other sources to build infrastructure that will provide supply diversification over the next three decades.

He adds that this aligns with their Water Safety 2050 strategy, which aims to make the Water Authority of Fiji a more resilient supplier.