Climate Change Adaptation Market to Take Shape in the Coming Decade
The climate change adaptation industry is just beginning to take shape in the United States. Although federal agencies are beginning to provide funding and techni¬cal assistance, the federal government has yet to take up climate change adaptation with adequate urgency—especially when the costs of adaptation are compared to the costs of inaction. Adaptation has also lagged because policymak¬ers have focused on reducing emissions, some people in prior admin¬istrations didn’t believe climate change was a serious problem and some climate change “believers” feared talking about adaptation would reduce the political pressure to mitigate greenhouse gases. Additionally, climate change projections have a wide range and local entities lack adequate models for their region or resources, making planning difficult. “How do you rationalize to a board of directors that you need to spend $1 billion, and you might be wrong?” said Ed Means, vice president of consulting engineering firm Malcolm Pirnie.

States, Feds and Consultants Begin Planning for an Inevitable Rise in Sea Levels.
Despite warnings from the EPA and many state governments, officials at most U.S. coastal cities are in denial about the challenges they’ll face in the coming decades from sea level rise and intensifying storms. “There are certainly scientists, engi¬neers and others who understand the issue, but budgets are tight and govern¬ments have more immediate priorities,” said Dennis Kamber, senior vice president for global water management at the U.S. division of Arcadis. However, attitudes and policies are changing in many quarters—hastened in part by Hurricane Katrina. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are incorporating sea level rise in future infrastructure projects. State governors are advocating for more federal resources through the Coastal States Organization. In these early days, much of the work around climate change adaptation for coastal cities is being done in the context of more traditional projects, with climate change impacts taken into consideration, sometimes explicitly, some¬times not.

Climate Change Adaptation to be a Big Focus for Water Resource Management
The prospect of climate change is pushing what were once radical concepts to the forefront of planning for water and wastewater utilities. While desalina¬tion projects are being weighed by some water agencies in coastal cities, water agencies nationwide are looking at decentralized water retention and treatment systems for groundwater replenishment, reuse of treated wastewater for non-potable and indirect potable uses and more end-use water efficiency measures. “There’s some really innovative think¬ing going on,” said Armin Munévar, senior technologist in CH2M Hill’s water business group. “How do we restructure both our water and wastewater systems to not only adapt to climate change impacts but also to reduce greenhouse gas emis¬sions.”

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