Building the Resilience of WSS Utilities to Climate Change and Other Threats : A Road Map

Water supply and sanitation (WSS) utilities are expected to become increasingly susceptible to the expected impacts of climate change. WSS utility planners and engineers have dealt with natural climate variances and disaster planning as part of the design process for many years. However, the traditional methods for these plans have not considered the deep uncertainty surrounding many future conditions, which are further exacerbated by climate change. To help utilities incorporate resilience and robustness in their choices, this road map proposes a process in three phases that can inform the design of strategies necessary to WSS services provision. The road map builds on the understanding that climate change is most often an amplifier of existing uncertainties (many of which are threats), and, as such, should not be evaluated as a stand-alone impact. The approach reveals the strengths and vulnerabilities of investment plans concisely and helps utilities invest robustly by identifying near-term, no-regret projects that can be undertaken now, while maintaining flexibility in pursuing additional actions adaptively as future conditions evolve. These results can be achieved both with a qualitative exploration and a quantitative assessment, depending on the context and the resources available.

Resilient Water Infrastructure Design Brief

The purpose of the Resilient Water Infrastructure Design Brief is to guide users on how resilience can be built into the engineering design of their project. With a focus on the three natural hazards most likely to affect water and sanitation infrastructure (droughts, floods, and high winds from storms), the document provides a six-step process to help users address weather and climate related challenges that are most likely to affect an infrastructure component at some point in its operational lifetime. In order to achieve both systems level resilience and infrastructure level resilience, this design brief should be used in tandem with other World Bank publications, such as the 2018 guidance document “Building the Resilience of WSS Utilities to Climate Change and Other Threats: A Road Map,” which emphasizes systems level resilience and analysis. The design brief highlights the relationship between these two documents and the unique function that each serves in improving overall resilience in the water sector. It also includes guidance for users to incorporate resilience design principles into projects’ appraisal documents and a sample module/task description for applying the two documents to an engineering design or feasibility study terms of reference.

Climate Change Adaptation in Europe and Central Asia: Disaster Risk Management

The following paper serves as a sectoral background note for the regional report ‘managing Uncertainty: Adapting to Climate Change in Europe and Central Asia Countries’. It focuses on what is known about the implications of climate change for extreme weather and the ability of Europe and Central Asia (ECA) to mitigate and manage the impact of extreme events. It also explains how climate change will increase weather-induced disasters in ECA, highlighting the sensitivity of ECA’s population to these hazards, and recommending various measures in the area of financial and fiscal policy, disaster risk mitigation, and emergency preparedness and management, to reduce current and future vulnerabilities. The goals of this paper are to: (i) present forecasts on how climate change will affect weather-related hazards and secondary effects, and what impact the extreme hydro-meteorological phenomena will have on the countries of Europe and Central Asia; and (ii) provide an overview of measures to mitigate and manage these risks.

Achieving Low Carbon Growth For The World

The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets, namely that those who cause damage by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay. This global problem requires a collaborative, global response. Leadership, acceptance of differentiated responsibilities, emission targets and trading must be at the heart of any future global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Developed countries must lead the way in taking action by: adopting ambitious emission reduction targets of their own; promoting rapid
technological progress to mitigate the effects of climate change; supporting programs to combat deforestation; encouraging effective market
mechanisms; and honoring their aid commitments to the developing countries

Climate-Resilient Infrastructure Officer Handbook

Climate-related shocks and stresses are increasing in frequency and magnitude, causing damages to infrastructure systems and disruptions in the provision of services. Yet there is not sufficient investment needed to infrastructure systems’ climate resilience. The global urban infrastructure investment gap alone is estimated to be over US$4.5 trillion per year, with a premium of 9-27% is required to make infrastructure low carbon and climate- resilient Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are a key entry-point to mobilise private sector finance to bridge this gap and must be resilient to climate change and work to build the resilience of the communities they serve. The Climate-Resilient
Infrastructure Officer (CRIO) Handbook provides tools and guidance on how PPP practitioners can best integrate and advocate for climate-resilient infrastructure.

ECAM Tool 2021 – Spanish Version

¿Qué pueden hacer las empresas de agua y saneamiento para combatir el cambio climático? ¡Reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero!

Para empezar, es necesario realizar una evaluación que abarque todo el ciclo urbano del agua. ¡Esta es ECAM!

ECAM Tool 2021 – English Version

What can water and wastewater utilities do about climate change? Cut greenhouse gas emissions!

Actions start with an assessment that spans the urban water cycle. This is ECAM! Watch this video and learn more about this tool!

Adaptation & Resilience – Report following Water Climate Discussion Series Discussion (13 May 2021)

The Water Climate Discussion series is creating a space to come together and help the water sector build its leading role in addressing the climate crisis. The series is the result of close collaboration between water institutions who have come together recognizing climate change as an existential threat and wish to have a voice promoting a key message: water is climate.
This report has been produced based on the discussion lead by Lucien Damiba from WaterAid, Trevor Bishop of WRSE, and the participants’ interaction during the first discussion of the series: Adaptation and Resilience, on Thursday, 13 May 2021. Chapter numbers refer to chapter markers in the video recording of the discussion.

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