Update on Climate Readiness Tools and Resources

Increasing climate readiness can help build resilience to extreme events such as Superstorm Sandy, which impacted over 690 drinking water and wastewater utilities across eleven states and Washington, D.C.  To assist in building climate readiness in the water sector, EPA will be providing a series of webinars on Climate Ready Water Utility (CRWU) tools and resources, which will start on January 23, 2013 and run through July 2103. You can register for these webinars at www.epa.gov/climatereadyutilities.

In addition, Version 2.0 of EPA’s Climate Resilience Evaluation & Awareness Tool (CREAT) is now available for download at www.epa.gov/climatereadyutilities.  The tool assists drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities, in identifying climate change threats, assessing potential consequences, and evaluating adaptation options.  CREAT 2.0 builds on the capabilities of the first version of the tool by providing local historical climate data, as well as more comprehensive downscaled climate change projections.  This new version uses a flexible framework, which allows utilities, regardless of size or type, to consider climate impacts at multiple locations and to assess multiple climate scenarios.