Emergency Response and Long Term Planning: Two sides of the Coin for Managing Water Resources

Abstract:

As projected by the US National Climate Assessment and the IPCC, extreme climate and weather events are occurring more frequently and with more intensity across the nation. Communities – and the water resource managers that serve them – are facing difficult choices to increase emergency preparedness, recover from costly impacts, and increase long term resilience. The presentation is based on a recent set of case studies about what happened in six communities that experienced one or more extreme events, focusing on water resource management. Two of the case studies will be presented, revealing that building climate resilience is not just about long term planning – it is also about taking the steps to be prepared for – and to be able to recover from – emergency events. The results of this study have implications for educating local officials on ways to think about resilience to balance both long-term and short-term preparedness.