Adaptive and Affordable Urban Water Supply Planning

Climate change is increasing hydrological variability and water stress in many regions, leading urban water planners to invest in expensive new water supply infrastructure. These costly investments raise water bills, challenging affordable water access for low-income populations. Adaptive infrastructure planning, in which planners develop infrastructure incrementally if-and-when needed, has the potential to enable water reliability in a changing climate with less infrastructure. Using case studies in California, I present advances toward 1) quantifying the impact of climate change on urban water affordability and 2) reducing the cost of urban water infrastructure development by adapting to climate signals.

Speaker: Sarah Fletcher, Stanford University