Water You Doing About Climate Change? A Review of Resilience, Long-term Planning, and Cross-Sector Integration as Tools to Prepare for the Weather of the Future

Planning and asset management have always been critical to water utilities, but, in the face of climate change, there is a growing recognition that the high consequence and low probability events for which they have planned might become more probable. Because the interconnection of energy-water systems raises the possibility of cascading failures from one sector to another, these risks are particularly acute. Resilience, long-term planning, and cross-sector integration between water and power are important tools for weathering the effects of climate change, particularly given aging infrastructure and a need to act in an economic and socially equitable manner. To understand how these tools are applied in industry, we interviewed thirteen utilities across ten states that span the geographical diversity of the country and include a range of customers from 1,000 to 4.2 million people. We organized, curated, and synthesized the interview data to arrive at several key findings. We found that, though there is not a consistent definition for resilience, it is something that utilities have always planned for but perhaps under a different name. For instance, resilience and reliability are terms that often get conflated, as are risk and vulnerability. However, there is a tangible shift in the industry towards defining and determining measurable resilience metrics. While the exact metrics are still a work in progress, utilities are taking steps in the right direction by putting people and culture at the center of resilience; recognizing their own interdependencies (e.g., water, power, and gas); and pursuing better cross-sector collaboration. Despite each utility facing unique threats posed by climate change, there is much to be learned through such collaboration. Utilities that are first movers in the resilience space can illuminate a path forward for others and help pave the way for standardization across the industry.