FEMA, working with EPA and water sector stakeholders, has instituted a new Water Systems Lifeline in its Community Lifelines construct, which FEMA and its emergency management partners use to support incident response planning and operations. This new lifeline covers both potable water infrastructure and wastewater management.

The Water Systems Lifeline is comprised of two Components with several Subcomponents, as listed below. The changes are reflected in updates to information and resources on FEMA’s Community Lifelines webpage, including the new Community Lifelines Toolkit 2.1.

1. Component 1: Potable Water Infrastructure
   1. Subcomponent 1: Intake
   2. Subcomponent 2: Treatment
   3. Subcomponent 3: Storage
   4. Subcomponent 4: Distribution
2. Component 2: Wastewater Management
   1. Subcomponent 1: Collection
   2. Subcomponent 2: Storage
   3. Subcomponent 3: Treatment
   4. Subcomponent 4: Discharge

Additionally, with this update, the previous Food, Water, Shelter lifeline – which included water and wastewater – has been replaced by Food, Hydration, Shelter.

FEMA and EPA worked closely together to better identify and represent the water sector (drinking water and wastewater systems) in existing emergency response procedures, protocols, and frameworks. Additionally, water sector partners, represented principally by the Water Sector Coordinating Council (WSCC) and Government Coordinating Council (GCC), advocated a change of this kind via Congressional testimony, incident after action reports, and other means. The WSCC identified this change as a top priority since 2009 and commented specifically on the original Community Lifelines construct in 2017.

FEMA defines a lifeline as a service that “enables the continuous operation of critical government and business functions and is essential to human health and safety or economic security.” FEMA developed a construct around these lifelines, of which there are now eight, to increase effectiveness in disaster operations and better position itself and its partners to respond to catastrophic incidents. The construct allows emergency managers to characterize the incident and identify the root causes of priority issue areas and distinguish the highest priorities and most complex issues from other incident information.