A recent New York Times Assignment America Series article featuring Sandpoint, Idaho, highlighted the toll that drought and climate change are taking on rural western towns. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working with the city of Sandpoint Public Works Department, along with several other water utilities, to help better understand potential climate change impacts and evaluate adaptation options to address these impacts.
EPA assisted Sandpoint as they conducted a climate risk assessment using EPA's Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT). Through several webinars and an in-person visit, EPA and Sandpoint examined the threat of drought, reduced snowpack, and wildfire to its watershed, reservoir and conveyance infrastructure. By analyzing these threats and the possible adaptation measures available, the city is now in a position to develop and implement comprehensive adaptation plans that will mitigate their risk in a changing climate.
CREAT is a software tool designed to help drinking water and wastewater utilities understand potential climate change threats and assess the related risks at each utility. The tool allows users to evaluate adaptation options to address these impacts using traditional risk assessment and scenario-based decision making. CREAT provides libraries of drinking assets that could be impacted by climate change, possible climate change-related threats and measures that can be implemented to reduce the impacts. The tool helps users identify threats based on regional differences in climate change projections and designing adaptation plans based on the types of threats being considered. Following assessment, the tool provides risk reduction and cost reports that will allow the user to evaluate various adaptation options as part of long-term planning.
Source: U.S. EPA
