Can Our Water Infrastructure — And Utility Managers — Weather The Storm?

By Claudio H. Ternieden, Erica Brown, Lauren Fillmore, Karen Metchis, Kenan Ozekin, and Nancy Beller-Simms

Extreme weather is battering our nation’s water infrastructure, but utilities are gaining valuable lessons on how to deal with future events.

Extreme weather events are increasingly common and can potentially impact the nation’s water infrastructure, such as water and wastewater conveyance and treatment systems, intakes, stormwater, and drainage management systems. These events may include longer and more frequent and intense storms with higher winds and storm surges, prolonged higher temperatures, extended drought, earlier snowmelts, and sea level rise. These extreme events have added unpredictability to an already challenging job facing water, wastewater, and stormwater service providers, emergency planners and responders, elected officials, and local and regional decisionmakers. Recently, federal agencies and research organizations joined to collect information on these events in six areas of the United States, and their findings will help utilities and other organizations to better plan their infrastructure investments and implementation approaches.

In August 2010, more than 80 drinking water, stormwater, and wastewater utility practitioners participated in a workshop that focused on their weather-sensitive information needs for making key decisions on long-lived and costly investments. (See Water Research Foundation publication “The Future of Research on Climate Change Impacts on Water” [2011] or the Water Environment Research Foundation [WERF6C10] report for the full workshop proceedings and outcomes.) These practitioners were particularly concerned about their risk and vulnerability in preparing for and adapting to an increased number and intensity of extreme weather events. Participants noted that a number of their colleagues have faced an extreme event in the recent past and that they could benefit from the knowledge gained and lessons learned from others’ experiences to better prepare for and adapt to future events.