Adaptive Water Infrastructure Planning - Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities - page 76

down and botom up approaches, sources of climate information, and use of models.
WERF (2009) have discussed the impacts of climate change on the various components
of wastewater and storm water utilities and then a botom-up based method for risk
management. The NRC (2010) presented a climate change adaptation strategy based
upon improved communication and risk management - presenting many processes
to accomplish this. Brekke et al. (2011) also present processes for water management
adaptation. The US EPA Water Security Division has developed the planning tool Cli-
mate Resilience Evaluation & Awareness Tool (CREAT) to help water supply and waste-
water understand climate change related threats and adaptation options (htp://water
.epa.gov/infrastructure/watersecurity/climate/creat.cfm, accessed November 25, 2011).
Many of the adaptation planning processes recommend the use of monitoring to de-
termine when to take adaptive management actions. A major challenge of this is the
determination of whether a climate change has actually occurred or not. A novel method
which integrates risk-based decision theory and hypothesis testing of trends to deter-
mine the economic consequences of taking action versus not taking action is presented
by Rosner et al. (2011).
Adaptation
Approaches for urban water adaptation are similar to those of other sectors. They should
be robust (actions implemented over time and space that function acceptably well
under all future uncertainties and risks), flexible, and adjustable; include no-regret (valu-
able even without climate change) and co-benefit (valuable to multiple sectors) actions,
integrating with sustainability planning to respond to other pressures on the region,
GHG mitigation, and a portfolio of approaches for multiple levels of safety; be evaluated
with multiple social, economic and environmental criteria; respect equity and adaptive
capacity needs; responsive to climate surprises; and be resilient and employ adaptive
management as needed. In addition, because adaptation is often implemented at the
local level, local stakeholders must be integrated into the planning process (Kousky et
al., 2009, Stakhiv, 2010, Brekke et al., 2011, Lempert and Groves, 2009, Ray et al ., 2011,
NRC, 2010, Yohe, 2009).
There are two types of plans in an adaptation strategy. The first is “Here and Now”
actions for new projects or for presently threatened areas. They should be designed for
climate change adaptation. The incremental costs are relatively low compared to capi-
tal costs under the present climate (citation). “Prepare and Monitor” actions are where
implementation does not take place now because uncertainties are too high and/or pres-
ent threats are low- but options are preserved and actions taken when a trigger point or
threshold also determined as part of the adaptation planning process is reached based
upon a monitoring system. (Thames Estuary, 2009, Brekke et al, 2009, Ray et al., 2011).
For the built environment, there are three general categories of responses or adaptation
to the impacts of climate change. These include protecting against the impacts by struc-
tural means; accommodating the impact; and retreating from the impacts.
The recommendations of the US Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force
(2011) are particularly appropriate for the management of urban water infrastructure
under climate change. These include: