Urban Systems As Place-Based Foci For Infrastructure Interactions - Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities - page 42

will be opportunities resulting from climate change such as reduced wintertime heat-
ing demands. This statement briefly reviews some of the sectors and services impacts
of climate change, drawing especially on the experience of New York City. The focus is
on energy, water and wastewater, transportation, public health, and urban land use and
planning (also see II B regarding Boston).
In regard to critical urban infrastructure, degradation of building and infrastructure
materials is projected to occur, especially affecting the energy and transportation sec-
tors (Rosenzweig et al., 2011; Wilby, 2007). The gap between water supply and demand
will likely increase as drought-affected areas expand, particularly for cities located in
the lower latitudes, and as floods intensify (see as example as detailed case study of the
Tijuana River watershed: Das et al., 2010). While precipitation is expected to increase
in some areas of the U.S., water availability is projected to eventually decrease in many
regions, including cities whose water is supplied primarily by meltwater from mountain
snow and glaciers (Major et al., 2011). In many coastal cities, critical infrastructure is
within areas that are more likely to be flooded with increasing sea level rise and storm
surge (SFBCDC, 2011; Cela et al., 2010). Below, some of these significant impacts across
several sectors and services are briefly detailed.
1) ENERGY
As climate change emerged as an issue of global concern, some cities prioritized mitiga-
tion efforts to reduce energy consumption and their carbon output. Emphasis is now
being placed on adaptation and climate resilience as well as mitigation (Hammer et al.,
2011). Effects of climate change on the energy sector operations will be felt on both sup-
ply and demand. Power plants are frequently located along bodies of water and are
therefore susceptible to both coastal and inland flooding. Increased variability in water
quantity and timing due to the projected changes in intensity and frequency of precipi-
tation will have impacts on hydropower. The likely increase in heat waves implies more
peak load demands, stresses on the energy distribution systems and more frequent
brownout and blackouts. These will have negative impacts on local health and local
economies. For any given city, analyses are needed to determine the overall impact of
climate change on energy demand as it may increase or decrease depending on the bal-
ance of seasonal effects, i.e., reduction in energy demand in cooler seasons and increased
demand in warmer seasons. In these season shifts, it is generally found that increased
cooling demands are greater than the GHG emission reduction created from lower heat-
ing demands (Hammer et al., 2011).
For the energy sector, adaptation and mitigation strategies often overlap, and it is
critical to put emphasis on adaptation as well as mitigation to help reduce the inevit-
able impacts of climate change on the energy sector. Specific strategy examples which
blend both adaptation and mitigation within the energy sector include the application
of demand management programs to cut peak load; updating of power plants and net-
works to increase resilience to flooding/storm/temperature risks, and diversification of
fuel-mix for city power to increase share of renewables. In these cities, scaling up access
to modern energy services to reduce poverty, promote economic development, and im-
prove social institutions often takes precedence over climate-related concerns. However,
if adoption of these mitigation measures brings greater reliance on renewable sources of