The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held its First National Expert and Stakeholder Workshop on Water Infrastructure Sustainability and Adaptation to Climate Change in 2009. Sponsored by the EPA Office of Water and Office of Research and Development, the workshop was attended by experts and stakeholders from the federal, research, utility, engineering, academic, and NGO sectors. The workshop included several plenary sessions, as well as two concurrent tracks: Climate Change Impacts on Hydrology and Water Resource Management; Adaptive Management and Engineering: Information and Tools. It is very important to gain a better understanding of what EPA can do to help utilities make decisions and where EPA can make investments in science and research. It is also important for EPA to understand what the utilities are already doing, and how to engage in research that is complementary, not redundant. The focus of this workshop is on precipitation-related impacts. Although sea-level rise is an important concern for coastal utilities, this topic will be only touched upon here and will be left for a more complete discussion at a future workshop. Also, this workshop is focused on adaptation. While the interaction between water utilities and energy is critical (water utilities use 3 to 4 percent of total U.S. energy), this workshop will not address mitigation efforts.
