What You Need to Know About Climate Risks to Water Utility Infrastructure and Assets Webinar

Climate change presents a challenge to traditional water and utility engineering and planning practices because of an increase in the variability and uncertainty of future weather, water supply, and water quality conditions.

This webinar will highlight findings from a recent survey and report of 18 U.S., British, Australian, and Canadian water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities about the emerging question of how climate risks and extreme weather events are affecting, or are expected to affect, utility-built assets and infrastructure.  

It will feature examples of how forward-thinking utilities are responding to and planning for current and future consequences of extreme rainfall, flooding, drought, wildfire, and sea-level rising by building new infrastructure, replacing or repairing assets, and changing operational and treatment processes.

The webinar will also share information on cutting-edge processes and tools being applied to quantify future asset risks and incorporate climate change projections into utility planning and asset management programs.  Although many of these practices are still at an innovative stage, webinar participants will nonetheless be able to learn from their peer water utilities globally.  They can use the insights from this webinar to consider how the climate risks and management solutions could apply to their own drinking water, stormwater, or wastewater systems.

Learning Objectives:

1. Recognize what impacts climate change and extreme weather are presenting to several large water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities around the world.
    
2. Evaluate how large utilities are managing risks to their assets and infrastructure by repairing or replacing assets, changing operations, and planning differently.
    
3. Determine whether types of tools and processes identified in the survey might be of value to their organizations.