Samoa water utility turns to long-term planning amid climate pressures

Samoa collects water in a storage facility. Screengrab

By Ron Rocky Coloma

As Pacific island nations face rising seas, aging infrastructure and limited budgets, Samoa’s main water utility is showing how long-term planning and local expertise can help protect essential water services.

The Samoa Water Authority provides clean drinking water to about 90 percent of Samoa’s population and operates the country’s main wastewater treatment plant. Its experience offers a practical example for other Pacific utilities trying to maintain critical infrastructure while dealing with climate pressures, funding constraints and supply-chain delays.

At the center of the work is asset management, a system that helps utilities track the condition of infrastructure, plan repairs and decide which projects should move forward first. For Samoa, that means making sure pumps, pipelines, boreholes and treatment systems are not only operating today but can continue serving communities in the years ahead.

Sharon Lesa, an asset management engineer, said Samoa’s water rates are insufficient to cover major capital projects, forcing the utility to rely heavily on international donor partners for larger infrastructure projects.

“Unlike New Zealand, our water tariff or water rates are never enough to fund our capital works, so we have to rely a lot on our international donor partners,” Lesa said.

That financial reality has made planning more important. Rather than waiting for systems to fail, the authority began using condition assessments in 2021 to better understand which assets were most at risk and which needed immediate attention.

Lesa said the effort started in operations, where staff collected data that later helped shape annual work plans and maintenance priorities. By 2023, the authority had enough information to develop its first asset management plan, focused on wastewater infrastructure. The approach has since expanded into the water side of the utility.

The data has been especially useful in Samoa, where replacement parts can take months to arrive.

“As an engineer in the islands, you will find that very, very useful because then it will help you to know, ‘OK, how many pumps do I need to order next year?’” Lesa said. “You’ll be very, very lucky if you can order a pump, then get it within six months.”

Climate change has added urgency to the work. Lesa said the utility has already had to relocate some drinking water boreholes farther inland due to sea-level rise.

“In the past few years, we’ve had to relocate a lot of our drinking water boreholes further inland because they were starting to be affected by rising sea levels,” she said.

The Samoa Water Authority has also tied asset management to governance and accountability. Its plans connect to annual work programs, corporate goals and employee performance measures, helping ensure that infrastructure planning is not treated as a separate technical exercise but as part of the whole organization.

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Priyani de Silva-Currie, a technical fellow in asset management, said Pacific island nations are often defined by their remoteness, but that remoteness has also helped shape resilience, creativity and community-led problem-solving.

“Despite fewer resources, Pacific island nations are delivering world-leading asset management, creating exceptional value for money and punching well above its weight,” de Silva-Currie said.

She said Pacific approaches to stewardship offer lessons beyond the region, especially as communities seek infrastructure systems that balance human needs with environmental protection.

For Samoa, the work also depends on keeping knowledge within the utility. Lesa said training, mentoring and capacity building are central to making sure future engineers and managers can continue the progress.

“What we’ve always been trying to do is to highlight that asset management is not just data collection, it’s everyone’s responsibility,” Lesa said.

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