White Paper Encourages Improvements to Climate Change Modeling for the Water Industry

Responding to water industry concerns about potential impacts of climate change on drinking water supply, the Water Utility Climate Alliance (WUCA) has released a white paper that outlines potential improvements to scientific models used to project how greenhouse gas emissions will affect the earth’s climate over time.

The report, titled Options for Improving Climate Modeling to Assist Water Utility Planning for Climate Change, identifies seven initial improvements to global climate modeling. These enhancements will help make climate models more useful to the water sector in identifying the affects of climate change on water resources and developing subsequent adaptation strategies.

“We expect this white paper to spur dialogue with the climate research and funding communities on what improvements can be made in climate data collection and monitoring, climate models and downscaling techniques so that they can be applied in a manner that is more useful for the water sector,” said Paul Fleming, Chair of WUCA’s Science and Research Committee.

“We also recognize that significant uncertainties will remain about how climate will change even if these improvements are pursued,” Fleming said. “As a result, WUCA also will examine different decision-making methods in light of these uncertainties, and will release a companion white paper on this topic in the near future.”

For more information about WUCA, or to access a copy of Options for Improving Climate Modeling to Assist Water Utility Planning for Climate Change, log on to http://www.wucaonline.org