The Georgetown Climate Center's Adaption Clearinghouse is an excellent source for information on climate change. Not the endless discussions and debates on whether climate change is real - - it is a source dedicated to what cities, states, and water authorities are getting serious about - - adapting. At the local level, climate change is viewed from a different lens than the national and international debates. More rain and more drought has produced less local ideology and a more thoughtful discussion on changing codes and standards with the goal of making public infrastructure more resilient (get use to this word) to changing weather from global climate change.
Engineering needs to get on board with the notion of adaptability and resilience. More action seems warranted because science is painting an increasingly certain picture of a climate being altered by human actions. Models predict that as the earth's temperature rises, heat and drought will increase in bands across the American Southwest. At the other end of the spectrum is the understanding that for each one degree Celsius rise in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture. This means 2 to 3 percent more rain in general but 6 to 7 percent more extreme rainfall events.
Engineers will have to help cities and communities find resilience. Case studies show that it is far cheaper for a locality to spend money in the present to become more resilient than to pay for damages from weather disasters in the future. The shopping mall owner that chips in for a community's stormwater system upgrades, for instance, earns local goodwill, reduces the property's risk of damage from flooding and boosts the chances that people will still be able to shop when bad weather strikes.
A link to the City of Chicago Adaption Plan.
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