Watershed-Scale Strategies to Increase Resilience to Climate-Driven Changes to Surface Waters: North American Electric Power Sector Case Study

AbstractThis case study synthesizes strategies that electric power utilities can implement to reduce surface water risks to infrastructure, operations, and regulatory compliance as climate change impacts hydrologic regimes over the next century. The strategies range from the reach scale to watershed scale. A reach-scale example would be evaluating relocation alternatives for a transmission tower along an eroding streambank versus a streambank stabilization strategy. A watershed-scale strategy would involve the value engineering of stormwater management strategies that could be implemented across a catchment that is restorative of a more natural flow regime such as prolonged baseflows and reduced flooding and erosion. The cost-effective watershed-scale strategies highlighted herein include retrofits of existing detention ponds, beaver reintroductions (or discontinued extirpation), riparian reforestation, adding wood to headwater streams, and the removal of postsettlement alluvium from floodplains coinciding with restoration of floodplain wetlands. Many of these strategies are management approaches that could be implemented on utilities’ own property for relatively little cost while appealing to broader societal goals such as environmental restoration. Although costs will vary by setting and program goals, we hope that this article is a launching point for infrastructure managers to consider holistic, watershed-scale approaches to provide durable infrastructure resilience in the face of increased extreme events while contributing to long-term economic, social, and environmental sustainability.