Lempert, Robert, Brent Boehlert, David Groves, James E. Neumann, Kenneth M. Strzepek, Oliver Broad, Vignesh Sridharan and R. Cervigni (2015). “Adaptation to Climate Change in Planning Infrastructure”. Enhancing the Climate Resilience of Africa’s Infrastructure. Raffaello Cervigni, Rikard Liden, a. James E. Neumann and R. M. Strzepek. Washington, DC, World Bank, 103-130.
Climate change has the potential to put water and power infrastructure performance at risk. In most basins, there is a significant chance the infrastructure will underperform as a result of a drier than expected
climate. Changing infrastructure configurations and capacities, however, informed by knowledge of the range of future climate outcomes, has the potential to improve that performance. Even in forecasts for wetter conditions, there is potential for adaptation to improve outcomes by adjusting infrastructure capacities to match future climate projections. In this chapter, we present the results of our analysis on the substantial value of considering climate change when planning major climate-sensitive water sector infrastructure investments.