Climate Change
Global climate change will create greater uncertainty in the future. EBMUD has developed mitigation and adaptation strategies to deal with the changing climate and its effects on water resources. In 2008, EBMUD incorporated climate change into its Strategic Plan, and has developed and implemented a climate change monitoring and response plan to inform future water supply, water quality, and infrastructure planning.
Led by a staff-level climate change committee, EBMUD's response to climate change focuses on:
- keeping current with science and assessing potential effects of climate change in the Mokelumne and East Bay watersheds
- determining water supply and infrastructure vulnerabilities
- monitoring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by the District's operations
- integrating climate change in strategic planning and budgeting decisions
- advocating for new legislation and regulations that help water and wastewater agencies better respond to climate change
- developing adaptation and mitigation strategies as part of a water supply management program
An article authored by EBMUD staff and published in the June 2008 edition of the American Water Works Association Journal (Climate Change: Charting a Water Course in an Uncertain Future) presents a comprehensive case study of strategies to deal with climate change mitigations and adaptations, and concludes that water utilities can plan for the uncertainties of climate change and its impacts on water supplies and operations.
This article is available below as a PDF file that can be viewed and printed with Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free software.
Article reprinted from Journal AWWA, Vol. 100, No. 6, by permission. Copyright © 2008, American Water Works Association.
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