Climate change is often discussed at a very high level. Utilities understand that risks are increasing, but when engineers are asked whether a system is resilient, the answer can be harder to define.
Created in collaboration with 14 of the nation’s leading water providers, the Water Utility Climate Alliance (WUCA) Climate Resilient Engineering Design Guidance for the Water Sector shifts the industry away from broad statements about climate change to specificity that engineers can actually implement into new and existing infrastructure.
For example, asking whether a system is designed for a particular temperature gives engineers a concrete parameter to assess. Defining these inputs builds resilience into a project from the start. This way utilities steward funds with integrity—avoiding costly redesigns or emergency repairs.
In previous blogs, we discussed how the WUCA Engineering Design Guidance bridges planning and engineering so that utilities can practically design for extreme heat and flooding, drought, and extreme precipitation. In increasingly volatile conditions, utilities aren’t just designing for climate hazards, but for cascading impacts and overall system exposure.
So how do utilities navigate climate hazards (heat, wind, storms) and their downstream impacts (power outages, ventilation failures, operational downtime)?
Atmospheric conditions on their own rarely cause asset failure. Instead, they amplify vulnerabilities that already exist. For example:
High winds may not directly damage a facility but could trigger public safety power shutoffs.
Smoke may not reach inside a structure until ventilation systems pull it in.
Heat may not exceed average thresholds until extreme events push equipment beyond their design limits.
Cascading impacts add another layer of volatility. When multiple climate hazards occur simultaneously or in quick succession, such as extreme heat and wildfire or coastal flooding from high tides and storms, the cascading impacts are operational failure or service disruption. When multiple climate hazards interact, critical services including water or emergency response may be more greatly impacted, requiring precautionary shutdowns or exposing hidden dependencies.
“Climate change doesn’t knock on your door. What actually hits utilities are things like floods, power outages, and system failures. What we’re really designing for isn’t a storm or a heat wave, but the power outage or operational disruption that comes with it.”
- Adam Ross, Vice President and Strategy Leader for Climate Change and Resilience at Brown and Caldwell
Water and wastewater systems are expected to remain operational, even during compound events. The WUCA Engineering Design Guidance shifts the focus from “What’s the hazard?” to “What must still work when systems are stressed?”
For example, high winds often mean more frequent power outages, including public safety power shutoffs. While power can be shut down temporarily, water and wastewater systems are expected to stay in service for public safety and emergency services. Regular power outages due to high heat or storms underscore the need to design for longer and more frequent outages during compound events. This also highlights the standard water utilities must meet, even during unpredictable conditions.
“Our enemy here isn’t uncertainty—it’s the status quo. People agree we need to make systems more resilient but when you ask what to do, that’s where things fall apart. The WUCA Engineering Design Guidance drills climate risk down to specific hazards and specific inputs so planning and engineering have actionable guidance for climate-resilient design.”
- Adam Ross
To maintain safe water, effective treatment, and public trust, even during volatility, utilities can look to impacts—not just hazards—for where to begin.
Utilities have the opportunity to use everyday capital projects to advance both resilience and mitigation, rather than treating them as separate efforts. Traditional design practices that rely on historical data may no longer be adequate or safe as regions experience new extremes. The WUCA Engineering Design Guidance helps utilities identify and name where the system is exposed, known as exposure pathways, and define an actionable path forward.
“Utilities don’t have the luxury of separate capital programs—one for adaptation, one for mitigation, and one for business as usual. Instead, progress comes from treating every project as an opportunity to improve resilience while also looking for efficiency and emissions co‑benefits.”
- Karri Ving, Project Lead and Managing Principal in Functional Resilience at Brown and Caldwell
With structured methods for updating design assumptions beyond purely historical data, practitioners can make reasonable, tangible assumptions about future conditions. By naming where the system is exposed, utilities can develop flexible designs that account for system stress and volatility, rather than designing for an isolated climate event.
Specific multi-benefit recommendations that enhance resilience and reduce carbon footprints include distributed energy, battery storage, and microgrids. In the WUCA Engineering Design Guidance, each solution includes written examples of successful client projects and strategies for adapting electrical systems to emerging challenges.
Multi-benefit climate adaptation solutions balance carbon footprint and costs. A tension exists between investing in adaptation measures that require more energy or material and the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is a myth that climate adaptation measures are inherently more costly. The WUCA Engineering Design Guidance identifies creative, non-contradictory opportunities that balance increased resource needs with reducing a facility’s carbon footprint. Examples that extend asset life while reducing long‑term costs include efficient HVAC and power system configuration.
Each section of the WUCA Engineering Design Guidance includes suggestions for greenhouse gas mitigation, such as energy-efficient equipment, better insulation, geothermal heating and cooling, and on-site renewables.
With BC:LongView™, Brown and Caldwell helps clients pursue projects that simultaneously enhance resilience and reduce emissions, emphasizing the value of multi-benefit solutions that are environmentally responsible, intentional investments that save long-term costs.
An example of this multi-benefit ecosystem in action is the groundbreaking Roseville’s Energy Recovery Project. The waste-to-energy plant, designed by Brown and Caldwell, stabilizes wastewater solids generated in the treatment process to generate a sustainable fuel source that powers essential services, minimizes landfill waste, and safeguards ratepayers.
Utilities today struggle with the cascading impacts of compounding climate events—not necessarily the individual hazards themselves. Every day across the country, water and wastewater facilities safely operate under extreme heat, precipitation, and atmospheric conditions.
The WUCA Engineering Design Guidance moves utilities beyond scenario‑by‑scenario planning and toward more resilient, system‑level design thinking with actionable strategies. Climate-aware engineering considers the risk of system exposure during volatility, rather than relying on a single design point based on an individual climate hazard.
WUCA and the BC:LongView™ approach share the same outlook: utilities who integrate climate adaptation and mitigation into all capital projects, rather than treating them as separate efforts, will be set up to serve their communities with confidence into the future—no matter what lies ahead.