Water Utility Climate Alliance
Adaptation and Resilience Planning
Adaptation and resilience planning is essential for translating climate information into practical actions that advance water utility climate adaptation and strengthen long-term utility resilience. The resources on this page are WUCA products designed to help utilities move from understanding climate projections and risks to identifying, evaluating, and implementing adaptation planning strategies.
Water and wastewater utility infrastructure and operating procedures were established using historical data that no longer reflects emerging conditions, creating a growing gap between design expectations and performance. This guidance synthesizes current practices, identifies gaps, and translates climate risks into practical design strategies across a range of project types. WUCA developed this guidance to shift utility climate resilience from future planning considerations to approaches for designing today’s infrastructure for climate change.
Water utilities must balance numerous, often conflicting, objectives and projections of future conditions when making adaptation decisions. Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) methods are specifically designed for these conditions. This report provides an accessible introduction to DMDU by highlighting the types of insights DMDU can offer, and outlining the core components of a DMDU approach.
The concept of Level of Service (LOS) is widely used in water supply planning to define systemwide performance goals and evaluate the need for new infrastructure investment. This report presents a framework for water supply LOS evaluation using five core elements – system dynamics, future scenarios, performance indicators, risk tolerance, and equity.
WUCA conducted an informal water demand assessment in 2022 to learn more about how its member agencies address and model projected climate change impacts on future water demands. This report describes demand impacts including higher evapotranspiration rates, increased evaporation demand for cooling, longer growing seasons, increased conservation program implementation and population shifts.