The Road to Resiliency: Creating Climate-Resilient Water Infrastructure

What does it take to create climate-resilient water infrastructure? McKim & Creed offers suggestions–including assessing risk, reviewing solutions and exploring funding options–that can get you and your utility on the road to resiliency.

How Big an Issue is Climate Resiliency?

With a price tag upwards of $200 billion, the 2017 hurricane season was the most expensive in U.S. history. Seventeen named storms pummeled the country, particularly Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

And meteorologists don’t anticipate a reprieve anytime soon. “The brutal 2017 season was an awful reminder of the huge hurricane vulnerability problem we face, and how unprepared we are for a potential future where the strongest storms get stronger and push their storm surges inland on top of steadily rising sea level,” said Weather Underground Meteorologist Jeff Masters in National Geographic.

Moreover, in his paper titled “Assessing the Present and Future Probability of Hurricane Harvey’s Rainfall,” Kerry Emanuel asserts that “anthropogenic climate change is expected to lead to a greater incidence of high-intensity hurricanes, which together with rising sea level, will produce increased risk of storm surge flooding, while hurricanes are projected to produce substantially more precipitation as the atmosphere and oceans warm.”

What Can Utilities Do?

So with the frequency and intensity of storms increasing, how can communities prepare for damaging storms? How can they create climate-resilient water and wastewater infrastructure? And how do they pay for it?

Click on the image above to learn how to start down the road to resiliency with a proactive approach to climate-resilient water infrastructure.