US EPA

EPA has released this draft document solely for the purpose of pre-dissemination peer review under applicable information quality guidelines. This document has not been formally disseminated by EPA. It does not represent and should not be construed to represent any Agency policy or determination. EPA will consider any public comments submitted in accordance with this notice when revising the document.

Additionally, a companion to the report was developed in parallel by the EPA Office of Water, "Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments: A Review of Water Utility Practices (EPA 800-R-10-001)", and released in September 2010.

This report presents a series of case studies describing the approaches currently being taken by four water utilities in the United States to assess their vulnerability to climate change. The report is not intended to be a comprehensive listing of assessment approaches or utilities conducting vulnerability assessments. Rather, its purpose is to illustrate a range of issues and current approaches taken by selected utilities that are leaders in climate adaptation to understand and respond to climate risk. The approaches taken by the different utilities to assess their vulnerability to climate change range from sophisticated environmental modeling and scenario analysis to qualitative methods based on reviews of available literature. The case studies illustrate different approaches that reflect specific local needs and conditions, existing vulnerabilities, local partnerships, and available information about climate change. Information from these case studies will be of use to water utilities and other members of the water resources community to inform the development of strategies for understanding and responding to climate change.

This report presents a series of case studies describing the approaches currently being taken by four water utilities in the United States to assess their vulnerability to climate change.

Following the external peer review of the report it will be finalized and posted to the EPA web site.

U.S. EPA. Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments: Four Case Studies of Water Utility Practices (External Review Draft). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-10/077A, 2010.

Comments on this report may be submitted and reviewed using the e-Government Regulations.gov Web site. From the site, select Environmental Protection Agency and the keyword EPA-HQ-ORD-2010-0701 (for the docket ID) to comment on this report.