Climate change adaptation Program summary

Transcription

1 Climate change adaptation Program summary Climate change poses potential risks and opportunities to Sydney Water, due to changes in the frequency, distribution, intensity and duration of climate-related events. Though Sydney Water is well positioned to deal with climate change, the Climate Change Adaptation Program will build on our existing business capability and systems to quantify the risks and improve staff understanding of climate change impacts.

2 Climate change challenge Sydney Water provides sustainable water and wastewater services to over four million people. We have extensive experience managing climatic and weather-related extreme events through an adaptive management approach, embedded in corporate planning and risk management protocols. Climate change can alter the frequency, intensity, duration and distribution of climate-related hazards, such as bushfires, storms, flooding, hail, wind and heat waves. These changes pose a wide range of potential risks that could damage Sydney Water s assets and affect operational and maintenance requirements. The challenge is to adapt to climate change as part of ongoing management of existing infrastructure, and improved decision making for new infrastructure. Sydney Water uses a range of processes, decision logics and tools to achieve least-cost performance and servicing standards. Climate change will challenge our current processes. Sydney Water must consider the trade-off between investing in adaptation measures during the planning/construction stage or adapting progressively during refurbishment and renewal of infrastructure. Ultimately, we will need to combine these approaches to effectively adapt to climate change over time. What are the impacts? Climate change poses a variety of risks to Sydney Water including: potential reduction in fresh water supplies changes to customer demand for water increased risk of pipe corrosion and odours more extreme storms that test the capacity of sewage treatment plants and networks increased sea levels and storm surges posing a flood risk to low lying coastal assets and remote assets more extreme hot days and intense bushfires that could pose a threat to worker safety changes in soil conditions leading to greater risk of pipe failure disruption to electricity supplies due to increased extreme storms and heatwaves. Photo: Matt Lauder, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water NSW

3 Adapting to climate change Sydney Water completed a qualitative risk assessment of the impacts of climate change on its infrastructure, maintenance and operations in December By identifying and evaluating high level climaterelated impacts, the risk assessment helped engage the organisation, highlighting Sydney Water s priorities and informing the development of Sydney Water s Climate Change Adaptation Program. Outcomes so far Sydney Water s qualitative risk assessment identified and evaluated 63 climate change risks to Sydney Water operations and infrastructure. Almost 60% of these risks were assessed to be high priority and in need of further investigation. These high priority risks included rising sea levels and inundation of low-lying assets, plus increased intensity and frequency of bushfires and extreme weather events. Activities that have informed the development of Sydney Water s climate change approach Internal engagement climate change state of science workshops Sydney Water s Climate Change Strategy released Completed the climate change qualitative risk assessment Sydney Water Climate Change Adaptation Program funding approved Today Program roll-out Supply/ Demand Mitigation Adaptation Climate change included in Sydney Water s Strategic Corporate Risk Framework Involvement in NSW Senior Officers Climate Change Adaptation Group Exploring future directions in NSW infrastructure

4 Where to now? Sydney Water s Climate Change Adaptation Program will focus on how climate change may affect our: Infrastructure Including $39 billion of physical assets, structures, plant, equipment and facilities such as water, wastewater and recycled water mains, stormwater channels, pumping stations, reservoirs, treatment plants, buildings and communication networks. Operations Covering our business processes, protocols and staff involved in the delivery of water and wastewater, information technology, customer-related billing and communications services. Maintenance Including inspecting, maintaining and repairing Sydney Water s infrastructure to ensure operational performance and reliability. Four broad maintenance types will be considered including preventative, corrective, major periodic and breakdown maintenance. Customers Including both existing and future residential, commercial and industrial consumers of Sydney Water services.

5 The program involves three key themes to address our exposure and response to climate change impacts Theme 1 Vulnerability Impacts of climate change Ability to respond and recover Portfolio of adaption & planning responses This theme focuses on understanding how various, plausible climate change scenarios could affect Sydney Water. This includes: translating the science into useable scenarios, developed with internal and external stakeholders and technical experts. mapping Sydney Water s exposure to climate change hazards using the best available expertise. Sydney Water is working with the Federal Government s Critical Infrastructure Protection Modelling and Analysis (CIPMA) Program to map exposure to particular climate change risks. assessing the impacts at a more detailed level, by location and asset, operation and customer types, to determine our vulnerability. The work being carried out under CIPMA will help inform this assessment. Program benefits and outcomes By planning for climate change adaptation now Sydney Water will reduce the potential financial, operational and reputational impact of climate change. The Sydney Water Climate Change Adaptation Program will build on our existing business capability and systems to quantify the risks and opportunities and improve staff understanding of the impacts of climate change. It will cost, prioritise and deliver options to inform future capital and operational investment. Outcomes of the multiple projects led by Sydney Water under the three key program themes: Vulnerability, Resilience and Adaptation will contribute to our capability to understand, plan, respond and adapt to climate change.

6 Theme 2 Resilience Impacts of climate change Ability to respond and recover Portfolio of adaption & planning responses This theme will look at Sydney Water s existing resilience to natural hazards and system failures, to establish a baseline and therefore identify gaps that need adaptation responses. This includes: collating our learnings and quantifying the impacts of past natural events and system failures, such as storms, bushfires, floods, king tides and power outages. assessing the inter-dependency of Sydney Water s infrastructure with our bulk water, key energy and telecommunication suppliers. Path to adaptation The project flow chart shows the timing, linkages and interaction Mapping our ciimate change hazard exposure Collating learnings from past natural events Translating science into useable scenarios Inter-dependency energy, communications and bulk water Detailed assessment and quantification of impacts testing various scenarios Adaptive risk management framework Multiple complex long term risks, trigger points, risk tolerance levels Risk quantification Detailed assessment by infrastructure, operation and customer type Adaptation responses Response plans

7 Theme 3 Adaptation Impacts of climate change Ability to respond and recover Portfolio of adaption & planning responses This theme focuses on embedding climate change adaptation into existing business practices and processes, including budget cycles, risk management, and monitoring/review processes. This includes: developing a flexible, scalable and responsive adaptation management framework with the capability to compare the impact of climate change and adaptation measures on cost, asset life, risk likelihood and consequence. producing prioritised adaptation responses supported by cost-benefit analysis and multi-criteria assessment for infrastructure, maintenance, operations and customer servicing. Sydney Water is adapting to climate change by reducing it s reliance on electricity by introducing 11 gas cogeneration and hydroelectric facilities

8 Working together Collaboration is essential to the success of climate change adaptation. Sydney Water is working with numerous stakeholders to ensure the program is well informed, aligned with the latest science and policy directions and aims to achieve a collective approach to addressing these risks. Sydney Water is actively working with leaders in climate change adaptation, risk management and infrastructure services. The broad range of program stakeholders includes all levels of government, national and international research facilities, other utilities, the insurance industry, our suppliers (electricity, telecommunications, bulk water) and the community. Fay Briggs, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water NSW To know more Web sydneywater.com.au Enquiries Postal address Sydney Water PO Box 399 Parramatta NSW 2124 SW64 08/10 Printed on recycled paper