Policy Principles
Require Water Providers to Assess Risk and Plan for Climate Change Disruptions in Their System
- Climate change is a fact, yet too few water providers are doing a wholesale assessment of their infrastructure and supplies to evaluate the risk.
- Climate change doesn’t only affect future water supplies. There are a number of potential physical and transition risks posed by climate change that all water providers should assess. These may include: risks to infrastructure due to wildfires, floods, and subsidence; financial risk due to changing energy prices or potential costs to transition to lower emissions technology; and risks associated with changes to customer consumption patterns.
- Risk evaluation is the first step to risk mitigation and avoidance. It is impossible to plan for the future without risk planning.
ACTION:
Cal Water believes every water
provider should complete and
regularly update Climate Risk
Assessment Plans that take
full stock of the impacts of
climate change to their water
systems and develop advanced
solutions to address and
mitigate those risks.