The Toolkit for Climate-Resilient Water Utility Operations provides methodologies for a water utility to develop three documents that are essential to improve its climate resilience: a vulnerability assessment, a climate-resilient business plan, and an emergency response plan.
The toolkit was written primarily for medium to large water utilities in the Philippines (locally called water districts), but it can be used by any medium to large water utility worldwide with adjustments to local circumstances.
The USAID Be Secure Project is grateful to the Philippine Association of Water Districts, which created the Philippine Community of Practice on Climate Change and participated in a twinning partnership with the Florida Climate and Water Alliance to increase climate resilience of Philippine water utilities.
This toolkit will guide water utilities in building a team to research and quantify regional climate trends and projections. The team should consider the threat level of climate change impacts on their infrastructure, watersheds and stakeholders, including determination of what assets are most likely to be damaged or lost to climate change impacts, and what level of risk tolerance is acceptable. The team should brainstorm possible solutions to the impacts and narrow options to a list of solutions that leadership, staff and stakeholders are willing to support within the realm of financial reality, consolidate actions and determine the best prioritization in which to protect the at-risk assets, and implement the plans and assess results.
The toolkit details steps for:
- conducting vulnerability assessments to determine vulnerabilities within a water provider;
- climate-resilient business planning that integrates priority projects and actions identified by the vulnerability assessment into the normal course of utility operations; and
- the development and implementation of an emergency response plan to enable efficient and effective response to emergency events that may be exacerbated by climate change impacts.
You can download this toolkit for free here.
