Adapting Water Infrastructure to Climate Uncertainties Using Incremental Approach

The future impacts of climate change on water infrastructures are hard to predict. It creates a challenge for decision-makers to ensure that water infrastructure, such as dams, can withstand the future effects of climate change and continue to deliver expected services to communities, such as meeting their water supply needs.

Water infrastructure projects are usually large, irreversible, and expensive because they are expected to last for several decades. Preparing for climate change by adding extra capacity incurs the risk of costly overbuilding.

In resource-scarce countries like Kenya, this is not always possible. However, with flexible infrastructure planning, developing countries can adapt their infrastructure to climate change by building necessary infrastructure at the start, with the flexibility to expand in the future if required.

The study applied the flexible infrastructure approach to reservoir planning in Mombasa, Kenya.

Researchers have developed a planning framework that uses climate models and statistics to project future climate scenarios, enabling comparisons between flexible strategies and static approaches.

Results of the study show that “climate change uncertainty can be reduced over the lifetime of an infrastructure project across different climate change trajectories. Flexibility is effective in preventing unnecessary infrastructure additions while maintaining similar reliability.”

The study revealed that incremental approaches to climate adaptation are reliable. Incremental approaches to infrastructure development and adaptation would benefit vulnerable communities, especially those with limited resources.

To read the entire study, click on the link below: