Climate change presents several challenges to drinking water and wastewater utilities, including increased frequency and duration of droughts, floods associated with intense precipitation events and coastal storms, degraded water quality, wildfires and coastal erosion and subsequent changes in demand for services. While these impacts have been documented in numerous publications, finding the right information for your type of utility or geographic region can be difficult and sometimes overwhelming.
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NET ZERO 2030 Routemap
TECHNICAL GUIDANCE ON COMPREHENSIVE RISK ASSESSMENT AND PLANNING IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change is increasing the magnitude, frequency, duration and severity of climate-related hazards. It has become a major driver of disaster losses and development achievement setbacks. Climate and disaster risks arise due to compounding and cascading hazards and impacts, leading to complex and interconnected adverse consequences for various ecological and human systems. At the same time, other underlying risk drivers such as poverty, demographic development, land degradation or conflicts are aggravating exposure and vulnerability to climate-related hazards. Therefore, risk assessment and management in the context of climate change requires a comprehensive, systemic perspective on risk and its underlying drivers due to the complex and partly systemic nature of climate related risks.
Strategies for increasing water availability and enhancing water-use efficiency in Latin America and the Caribbean
Climate change, new patterns of land use, deforestation and urbanisation, among others, make water management in Latin America
and the Caribbean a challenge of significant complexity. Population growth also plays an important role: the region’s population has
grown steadily since 1950, to over 650 million today, adding pressure in terms of water availability.
Nature-based solutions in Europe
Climate change, biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems are interdependent and pose significant societal challenges, threatening economic and social stability, public health and well-being. The World Economic Forum considers extreme weather- and climate-related events and biodiversity loss to be among the five most imminent global risks (WEF, 2020). Fighting climate change and preventing ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss are highly interdependent, requiring increased coherency between their respective policy agendas and actions.
Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction
The central question for this Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022 (GAR2022) is how governance systems can evolve to better address the systemic risks of the future. In today’s crowded and interconnected world, disaster impacts increasingly cascade across geographies and sectors, as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and climate change are rapidly making clear. Despite progress, risk creation is outstripping risk reduction. Disasters, economic loss and the underlying vulnerabilities that drive risk, such as poverty and inequality, are increasing just as ecosystems and biospheres are at risk of collapse. Global systems are becoming more connected and therefore more vulnerable in an uncertain risk landscape. Such systems include ecologies, food systems, supply chains, economies and social
services.
Climate change and Europe’s water resources
In addition to the already existing pressure on our freshwater resources, climate change may further decrease water availability. In this study, projections of future water resources, due to climate change, land use change and changes in water consumption have been assessed using JRC’s LISFLOOD water resources model.
Annual European Union greenhouse gas inventory 1990–2020 and inventory report 2022
The present report is the official inventory submission of the European Union (EU) for 2022 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and also under the Kyoto Protocol (KP).
ADDRESSING WATER SECURITY
Achieving water security is a challenge, particularly in this twenty-first century characterized by tremendous changes that affect water resources. High water stress is experienced by over 2 billion people, while 4 billion suffer from severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year, according to the 2019 World Water Development Report. To guarantee long-term water security, it is necessary to identify appropriate and timely adaptation measures focusing on vulnerable regions.
Adapting to rising river flood risk in the EU under climate change
River flooding is the costliest natural disaster in Europe. Global warming and continued development in flood prone areas will progressively increase river flood risk. Direct damages from flooding could become six times present losses by the end of the century in case of no climate mitigation and adaptation. Keeping global warming well below 2°C would halve these impacts. Adequate adaptation strategies can further substantially reduce future flood impacts. In particular, implementing building-based damage reduction measures and reducing flood peaks using retention areas can lower impacts in a cost-efficient way in most EU countries, even to flood risk levels that are lower than today. Restoring natural wetlands and floodplains to retain excess water also improves the state of water and ecosystems.