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Water Resources and Supply Adaptation: A paradigm Shifting for Future Climate?
Citation:
YANG, Y. J. Water Resources and Supply Adaptation: A paradigm Shifting for Future Climate? Presented at Drinking Water Safety, Security, and Sustainability (DW3S), Hangzhou, CHINA, October 09 - 11, 2011.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
Climate change adds another layer of complexity in planning, engineering and management of water resources and urban water infrastructures. Yet our current practice is confined to the traditional approach that evaluates developmental scenarios and their sustainability mostly by a single attribute of either natural constraints or socioeconomic objectives. Rarely is a scenario of smart water development analyzed and optimized through a matrix of environmental and socioeconomic “greenness” variables: water resource utilization in water footprint, energy consumption in carbon footprint, and certainly engineering economics. In “urban metabolism”, the occurring hydroclimatic changes and their multi-media and multi-layer interactions with other planning-engineering variables expose the limitation of current management framework and engineering approaches. This inevitably demands for an alternative from the systems analysis of development scenarios on the basis of multiple variables including climate change. In this presentation, I will first describe major types of water resources impacts from acute climate events and long-term hydroclimatic changes, using the U.S. as an example, and then discuss key adaptation factors. The focus will be given to key variables and how they are considered in adaptation planning and engineering. For example, what degrees of water supply and wastewater management decentralization are amendable to the adaptation of existing urban infrastructures, as judged by water-energy matrix? What types of engineering approach in water supply is available or in need of R&D for adapting a distribution network to climate-induced source water change or to the demand variability related to local socioeconomics? This presentation will attempt to dissect the questions, in which the USEPA climate change mitigation and adaptation research programs are introduced and EPA Water Resources Adaptation Program (WRAP) activities are illustrated.
