United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool Version 2.0
A Climate Risk Assessment Tool for Water Utilities
Purpose
The Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (GREAT), developed under EPA's Climate Ready Water Utilities
initiative, assists drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater utility owners and operators in assessing risks to utility
assets and operations. Extreme weather events, sea-level rise, shifting precipitation patterns, and temperature changes
will affect water quality and availability. Managing these events will pose significant challenges to water sector utilities
in fulfilling their public health and environmental mission. Version 2.0 of GREAT provides access to the most current
scientific understanding of climate change, including downscaled climate model projections, that will increase user
awareness of projected changes in climate, related impacts, and potential adaptation options.
GREAT has a flexible and customizable risk assessment framework that organizes available climate data and guides
users through a process of identifying threats, vulnerable assets, and adaptation options to help reduce risk. GREAT
supports utilities in considering impacts at multiple locations, assessing multiple climate scenarios, and documenting
the implications of adaptation on energy use. To support more robust decision-making, GREAT encourages users to
compare the performance of adaptation options in multiple time periods across climate scenarios.
FEATURES
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Scenarios of climate change are provided at local
scales to support identification of threats that
affect utilities.
Pre-loaded data contains libraries of drinking
water and wastewater utility assets (e.g., treatment
plants, reservoirs, pump stations) and customizable
adaptation strategies for implementation.
Climate change information and data at
regional and local levels is included to support
the assessment of threat likelihood and potential
asset, environmental, community and economic
consequences.
Results support implementation of climate
change adaptation options and assessment of their
effectiveness in reducing risk to climate change
impacts.
Reports on climate data, risk reduction, and costs
can be generated from the tool to evaluate various
adaptation options.
Data and process can be customized over time
as new information becomes available, enabling
updates to adaptation strategies in the future.
Process: Adaptation, Planning & Use
In GREAT 2.0, water utility owners and operators
use information about their utility to identify
climate change threats, assess potential
consequences, and evaluate adaptation
options. This approach allows utilities to assess
impacts based on established thresholds when
utility operations are disrupted and assets are
impacted. Complementing other tools and
resources already employed in risk management
practices (e.g., models of hydrology and
projected demand), utilities can use climate
science data to evaluate the plausibility of
climate-related impacts and how soon these
impacts may affect the utility. continued on page 2
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Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool Version 2.0 - A Climate Risk Assessment Tool for Water Utilities page 2
Setup
Regional and Local
Historical & Projected
Climate Information
!==
Threats
Assets
Baseline
Analysis
Resilience
Analysis
Adaptive
Measures
Adaptation
Planning
Results and Reports
GREAT Process: Application of climate information and utility knowledge to assess risks and challenges presented by
climate change.
The GREAT 2.0 framework incorporates available qualitative regional and quantitative (downscaled) local climate
information to help inform the utility planning process. The software does not attempt to forecast climate change
(e.g., temperature and precipitation changes), but offers a range of potential conditions to consider. Users can consider
these scenarios of projected climate change to help identify related impacts important to operations, maintenance,
and management.
Monthly Total Precipitation
Sin
J FMAMJ JASO ND
24-hour Precipitation Events
| Projected
]H
5-yr 10-yr 15-yr 30-yr 50-yr 100-yr
GREAT provides
data and plots for
comparing local
historical conditions
with downscaled
climate model
projections for each
grid cell.
For More Information: GREAT 2.0 is available for download at
I MATE READY www-ePa-gov/cl'matereadyutilities.
I/ATER UTILITIES For more information, email
CRWUhelpiaepa.qov.
Example: Projected changes in intense
precipitation will likely increase the frequency
of flood events and the peak influent flows
into collection systems following storm
events. GREAT provides pre-loaded historical
precipitation data and projected changes based
on model outputs to help users understand
how these events will differ as climate changes.
Utility experience regarding how storms have
impacted utility assets and operation in the
past is key to interpreting the potential impact
of these changes in the future. GREAT guides
the user through a detailed risk assessment
including the selection of adaptation options
to reduce consequences from floods and
higher peak influent flows. By evaluating
benefits (i.e., reduction in risk) of different
adaptation options, users can develop
effective adaptation plans to prepare for
projected changes in storm conditions.
Benefits of GREAT
GREAT helps utilities organize and communicate
risks from climate impacts and potential gains
from adaptation to decision makers, stakeholders
and citizens. Incorporating GREAT results with
overall utility planning builds customer confidence
that a utility is being proactive in identifying
significant risks or gaps where additional planning
maybe needed.
Office of Water (4608-T) EPA 817-F-12-011 www.epa.gov/watersecurity December 2012
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