Abstract
Climate change is without a doubt one of the greatest sources of uncertainty today. Even among the majority of scientists who agree that it is happening and will continue to happen, there is a tremendous range of projections as to the specific impacts, their timing and their geographic extent. There's not even agreement over the magnitude of uncertainty surrounding the various projections. All of this uncertainty poses a huge challenge for many organizations, but for none more so than water supply agencies, since climate change may directly impact both water supply and water demand. East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) is a major water utility in California that recently considered climate change along with other future unknowns when it updated its water supply program through 2040. This paper discusses the process by which EBMUD considered the massive uncertainty posed by climate change in the context of other unknowns to formulate a flexible, defensible water supply strategy that would be robust in the face of the continually evolving scientific data over the next two decades. During this process, EBMUD considered not only the range of scientific projections, but also their possible reliability; and considered not only what we might do if various projections are correct, but what we might do if they are low or high. The discussion of the process and final outcomes should be of interest to all practitioners charged with helping society manage the tremendous uncertainties associated with climate change.
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