Climate Impacts on Water Infrastructure for the DoD (CIWI-D)

Sponsor: Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP)

Project Abstract: Many DoD installations are known to be vulnerable to water scarcity and extreme weather events based on climate change models and tools. However, these tools lack integration with established water infrastructure data and models to determine how changes in climate may impact installation missions during disasters and long-term infrastructure planning. The objective of this project is to develop a seamless, integrated suite of established models and methods for climate vulnerability assessment specifically tailored for DoD installations and water infrastructure called the Climate Impacts on Water Infrastructure for the DoD (CIWI-D) [pronounced "seaweed"].

Technical Approach: Climate vulnerability for installations is defined in DoD reports and analyses as the combination of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Towards this end, CIWI-D will be the first tool to integrate vetted data and models into exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity libraries developed in a user-friendly Python programming environment. CIWI-D will leverage well-established and open-source methods for water infrastructure analysis and geospatial data management to connect climate and infrastructure data together, construct network models of water systems, and assess them given changing climate.

Project Members

Student Theses

Estimating Reliability Impacts of Climate Change on Water Infrastructure in the DoD

LT Marlene Perez (September 2023)

This research and thesis will encompass the development of an integrated system of established models and methods on climate vulnerability assessment for DoD installations water infrastructure. We will first combine forecasts from several, vetted sources that focus on military installations to determine infrastructure exposure. Exposure data will be integrated into an infrastructure sensitivity library and use vetted sources to model the changes in failure rate on a water infrastructure due to climate forcing. This integration will be developed using publicly available water network models from the University of Kentucky Water Distribution System Research Database and OPEN SWMM Knowledge Base. Finally, these two libraries will be merged using a Python-based package, the water network tool for resilience (WNTR), to study adaptive capacity library. This library will inform mission impacts and provide recommendations to mitigate future stress on DoD installations.