Making the Case for Climate-Resilient Water Infrastructure and Supporting Strategies

Climate change is creating new challenges for stormwater, wastewater, and drinking water utilities. Many water utilities are recognizing the need to invest in climate resilience, but it can be challenging to garner support with limited time and resources and so many competing priorities and “everyday” disasters (e.g., lead pipes, water affordability issues, environmental compliance). Utility managers need a way to balance these priorities and decide what types of climate-resilient infrastructure, policies, and programs best meet their service area’s needs.

This project proposes to develop a comprehensive framework and tool to support water utilities with these decisions, helping utility managers to build a case for climate-resilient infrastructure and supporting strategies and to prioritize and optimize these investments. The tool will help utility managers to quantify benefits and costs of different solutions through a collaborative process. It will also help utilities to communicate the importance of climate resilience investments to stakeholders and build consensus for action. Research Partner: Water Utility Climate Alliance.