NOAA Climate Change & Water Sector Webinar Series March 20, 2015.

NOAA Climate Change & Water Sector Webinar Series

March 20, 2015

Presentation Outline

• CRWU History

• Adaptation Strategies Guide

• Extreme Events Workshop Planner

• CREAT• Projections Map• Storm Surge Inundation and Hurricane Frequency

Map

• Pilots• Outreach

• Q&A 2

Housekeeping

• Please keep your lines on mute• Q&A breaks throughout presentation

– Type your questions into the chat box– Ask over the phone at the end of the

presentation

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CRWU History

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National Drinking Water Advisory Council Climate Ready Water Utilities (CRWU) Report

Final report provides EPA with recommendations on developing a CRWU initiative to support water sector climate resiliency.

Developing an Adaptive Response Framework

Fundamental guide to build out the concept of a climate ready water utility, integrates with other tools.

Mission Statement

To provide the water sector (drinking water, wastewater,

and stormwater utilities) with the practical tools, training, and technical assistance needed to adapt to

climate change by promoting a clear understanding of climate science and adaptation options.

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Climate Ready Process

Climate Ready Tools & Resources

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Assess Risks and

Evaluate Opportunities

Collaborate with

Partners

Research and Gather

Information

Learn Climate and

Adaptation Basics

Explore

Elements of

Climate Readiness

Climate Resilience Evaluation

and

Awareness Tool

Extreme Events

Workshop Planner

ToolboxAdaptation

Strategies Guide

Adaptive Response

Framework

Adaptation Strategies Guide

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Promoting a Clear Understanding of Adaptation Options

Overview

• Guide for utilities to consider climate change in utility planning

• Navigate guide like a website

• Goals:– Present easy-to-understand climate

science, translating data into impacts for utilities

– List adaptation strategies related to impacts

– Assist in the adaptation planning process

• Updates – Water conservation practices

– Climate data– Energy Management– Green Infrastructure 8

ASG Overview

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Climate Region Briefs

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Challenge Briefs

• Translating climate data into utility-relevant challenges

• Adaptation options relevant to this challenge

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Adaptation Options

• Options provided in three categories– Planning– Operational– Capital/

Infrastructure• Relative cost ($-$$

$)• No Regrets• Utility Examples

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Sustainability Briefs

• Information on green infrastructure, energy management, and water demand management– benefits – how to get started– relevant

adaptation options– examples – links to further

resources

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Preparing for Extreme Weather Events: Workshop Planner for the Water Sector

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Developing long term plans to increase resiliency

Extreme Weather Events Workshop Planner

• Walks users through all of the steps of planning, conducting, and evaluating a workshop

• Goal is to determine actions that a utility or community can take today to become more resilient to more frequent and intense extreme events

• Open lines of communication between utilities and other local partners to assess potential impacts and adaptation to extreme events

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Workshop Planner Scenarios

• Five scenarios are included:– Flooding– Drought– Sea-level rise– Wildfire– Reduced snowpack

• Available on CRWU websitehttp://www.epa.gov/climatereadyutilities

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Pilot Workshops

• Bisbee, AZ– Drought, wildfire, flooding– Worked with other agencies and emergency

sectors to develop emergency management plans

– Developed outreach at schools and town halls• New Orleans; Erie, PA; Ft. Pierre, SD;

Fresno, CA• Updating tool with Rural Community

Assistance Program 17

• Provides easy “point and click” access to the 3 CREAT climate scenarios for any location within the U.S.

Scenario-based Projected Changes Map

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Scenario-based Projected Changes Map

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Storm Surge Inundation & Hurricane Frequency

Map

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Houston, TX Hurricane Stats

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Houston, TXFEMA Flood Maps

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Houston, TX SLOSH

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Climate Resilience Evaluation & Awareness Tool (CREAT)

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• Software tool for conducting risk assessment of potential climate change impacts at your utility

• Multiple climate scenarios provided to help capture uncertainty

• Assessments will help inform adaptation planning

• Results from CREAT help utilities compare potential costs, risk reduction and energy implications of different options

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About CREAT

Process

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What Can You Do In CREAT?

• Explore local climate data

• View links to publications, models and other tools

Build Awareness

• Compare adaptation options

• Generate reports to support decisions

Plan Adaptation

• Catalog data and assumptions

• Understand and assess climate impacts

Assess

Risk

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CREAT Process

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Historical Data

• 30-year (1971-2000) annual and monthly averages of temperature and precipitation

• Data provided at ½ degree by ½ degree resolution (32x32 mi.)

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Location ( ) with available climate stations ( ) in CREAT

• Intense precipitation data sourced from

NOAA climate stations

• Select the station that best matches

your historical data OR enter your own

Projected Climate Change

• CREAT provides projected changes in – Temperature– Precipitation– Intense precipitation– Sea level

• Rather than rely on a single projection, three scenarios are provided to support assessments over a range of possible future conditions

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What Information and Data are Available?

• Models as basis for climate projections• Down-scaling efforts to extend to local scales• Challenge: connect changing climate to more

direct consequences to water resources

2020-2029 2090-2099

Source: IPCC AR4 Projected Temperature Changes for SRES

A1B

CREAT plot of climate model

projections

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Climate Scenarios

• Scenarios, based on a single model projection, selected for each grid cell– Hot and Dry model– Central model– Warm and wet model

• Data provided for two time periods (2020-2050 and 2045-2075)

Multiple scenarios ( )within the distribution of climate model

projections ( ) for a given location.

Incr

easi

ng P

reci

pita

tion

Increasing Temperature

Selected scenarios

Climate Data in CREAT

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View data from multiple

climate stations, scenarios, and

time periods

Annual and monthly

temperature and precipitation

Intense precipitation events

and sea- level rise

• Consider those assets vulnerable to identified threats

• Pairs are the basis for all risk assessments • Risk assessed for each scenario and time

period when a threat is applicable

Asset-Threat Pairs

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• Baseline shows current resilience

• Opportunity to consider and document benefit of what you already do

• Represents the risk of taking no action

Baseline Analysis

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• You can assess the qualitative level of consequences for each category

• Tool combines these decisions into an overall level for asset-threat pair

Assess Consequences

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• Each assessment results in a specific combination of likelihood and consequences

• Results placed into bins of the risk matrix

Assessment Results

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• Resilience Analysis results represent the benefits from adaptation

• As in Baseline, assessments conducted for asset-threat pairs and time periods

• Similar process encourages you to consider options for reducing risk

Resilience Analysis

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• Continue to build a list of adaptation options by identifying those that could be implemented to provide additional protection

• Explore ability to modify or improve existing measures, not just new practices or infrastructure

Select and Modify Measures

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• Implementing adaptive measures should reduce consequences levels with respect to Baseline

• Difference in overall consequence level is translated into RRUs which are used to calculate the benefits of adaptive measures

Adjust Consequences

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• Adaptation packages are possible plans for adapting to climate change

• Each measure contributes costs and RRUs as a measure of benefit

• Packages also defined in terms of energy implications of adaptive measures

Building Packages

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Results provided as • Risk matrices:

assessment results by likelihood and consequence

• Risk profiles: results counted by overall consequence

• Indices based on RRUs and distribution ofresults in matrices

Quantitative Results

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CREAT 3.0

• Updated climate data• Monetized risk values for comparison of risk• Streamlined analysis option for new users and

small system users• Web-based / More user-friendly• Includes a library of energy management,

green infrastructure and water demand management resources for planning purposes

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CRWU Projects

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CREAT Pilots Extreme Events & Adaptation

Planning Workshops

Train-the-Trainer Workshops:

Storm Surge

Thank you!

Contact the Team• Curt Baranowski

– [email protected]

• Mike Maier– [email protected]

ov• Laura Dubin

– [email protected] • Jordan Page

– [email protected]

Get Updates!• Join our mailing list:

[email protected]

• Visit us on the web:– www.epa.gov/climater

eadyutilities

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