A record 120 participants joined a webinar on Utility Risks & Resilience to Climate Change Impacts hosted by the Florida Water & Climate Alliance (FloridaWCA), UF Water Institute and the Resilient Utility Coalition on September 25, 2020. Participants came from varied backgrounds and agencies including water utilities, Water Management Districts, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities and consulting firms.

Facilitated by Water Institute Research Coordinator Karen Schlatter, the webinar started out with a pop-quiz on climate change trends over the past 10 years to test participants’ knowledge and to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the FloridaWCA. A panel session on the EPA America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (AWIA) Risk and Resilience Assessments explored different utilities’ approaches and methods to their assessments. The webinar also included a presentation on aquifer storage and recovery and water supply resilience strategies in Miami-Dade County as well as an update on the FloridaWCA NASA ROSES funded project: Integrating NASA Earth Systems Data into Decision-Making Tools of Member Utilities of the FloridaWCA.

The webinar concluded with a breakout group session in which participants discussed barriers, successes, and resources for incorporating climate resilience into Florida’s water sector in small groups. The results from the breakout group session will be compiled and shared with participants on the FloridaWCA website in the coming weeks.

A recording of the webinar is available here.

To access the agenda, speaker presentations and more, click here.

Participants on the webinar answer one of the questions on the 10-year climate change quiz. Note that while the majority thought that temperature increased by 1˚F in the past ten years, the correct answer was actually 3˚F!