Philadelphia Water Department Climate-Resilient Planning and Design Guidance

In March of 2024 the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) released its updated (Version 1.1) Climate-Resilient Planning and Design Guidance to “provide actionable climate change information that can be directly applied to PWD planning and design processes.” The guidance document is part of a larger effort by PWD to protect their critical water infrastructure from a changing climate, beginning with PWD’s formation of the Climate Change Adaptation Program (CCAP) in 2014. CCAP was charged with assessing PWD’s risk and vulnerability to the region’s most pressing climate threats, ultimately focusing on sea-level rise, increased precipitation, and rising temperatures. With the release of the first version of PWD’s Climate-Resilient Planning and Design Guidance in January 2022, the department also adopted an official policy requiring the guidance to “be used in the planning, design and construction of all PWD projects to the extent feasible” as well as in the ongoing maintenance and operation of PWD facilities. The guidance further emphasizes this policy, saying “in order to ensure the long-term resilience of PWD infrastructure systems [...] it will be critical to embed this actionable climate change information within all levels of planning, design, and operations.”

The Climate-Resilient Planning and Design Guidance is organized around the area’s primary climate hazards: sea-level rise and coastal flooding, increased precipitation and riverine flooding, and extreme heat. Each section details relevant climate data, outlines how those projections will impact PWD’s operations, and then provides solutions. For example, to combat surface flooding, the document establishes a required Design Flood Elevation standard for applicable PWD projects; the document also warns of the health impacts heat can have on employees that work outside and establishes safety precautions to better adapt to rising temperatures. Adaptive Management Plans are also established as a requirement for any city asset with a use-life beyond the year 2075. The recommendations and research in the document reflects its guiding principles, including: 

  • Engineering standards and professional judgment; 
  • Planning frameworks for a non-stationary climate; 
  • Fulfilling PWD’s mission through integrated and equitable water resources management; and 
  • Supporting citywide resilience. 

The guidance document is intended to be a living document that is updated “every few years” with new projections and emission scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the National Climate Assessment (NCA).  

 

Publication Date: March 2024

Related Organizations:

  • Philadelphia Water Department

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Resource Types:

  • Agency guidance/policy
  • Planning guides

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