Intensifying weather events linked to climate change in countries in the Asia-Pacific region are likely to disrupt urban water and wastewater services delivery, affecting lives and livelihoods of residents.  While some areas are facing water scarcity and drought, others must deal with widespread flooding and extensive damage to infrastructure.  Severe flooding in Bangkok at the end of 2011, for example, led to the closure of more than 1,000 factories, and 700,000 people were out of work with a total estimated cost of $40 billion.

Water supply and wastewater management service providers in the region are therefore increasingly seeking to better understand how climate change would impact their operations, assess climate-change related risks, and identify ways to manage those risks by integrating practical approaches into their long term plans. For these services providers, assessments and plans must lead to practical actions to ensure that they are able to continue to deliver effective services in a changing and increasingly uncertain environment.

WaterLinks together with USAID's Environmental Cooperation – Asia (ECO-Asia) project and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) are conducting a rapid assessment to identify how water and wastewater service providers in the region are responding to the impacts of climate change.  Consisting of regional consultative workshops and a survey, the rapid assessment will: (1) determine the level of “readiness” of selected services providers to adapt to and address climate change impacts; (2) define possible actions to improve future climate “readiness”; (3) identify capacity building needs for adaptation efforts; and (4) document good practices that contribute to building resiliency against climate change impacts and peer-to-peer learning. 

Key outputs will form the basis for supporting knowledge sharing and capacity building efforts of service providers in the Asia-Pacific region to recognize the need for building climate readiness in terms of water services provision and introduce possible and practical supporting actions.

On November 24-25, 2011, WaterLinks, ECO-Asia and SEI co-organized a workshop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with 13 water services providers from across Asia  to initiate a joint effort to identify climate-change related risks to their operations, and potential actions for reducing risks.  Water services providers from Singapore and Western Australia presented practical innovations for addressing climate change impacts.  For more information, click on the workshop proceedings document below.  Following the workshop, WaterLinks, USAID and SEI will undertake a comprehensive survey to determine readiness, identify capacity building needs, and document good practices.