Water utility resilience is under focus during Climate Week NYC as Trust in Water highlights the AWWA Utility Resilience Index and American Water’s early achievement of its 2030 resilience target.
The Utility Resilience Index (URI) provides water and wastewater utilities with a framework for assessing how effectively they can prepare for emergencies, maintain critical services and recover following disruptive events.
The metric considers operational and financial capability, emergency response, business continuity planning and the vulnerability of the communities served.
Its role is receiving renewed attention as water utilities face more frequent extreme weather alongside ageing infrastructure, changing demand and increasing investment requirements.
Water utility resilience moves towards measurable benchmarks
The URI forms part of the American Water Works Association’s wider approach to risk and resilience management.
AWWA’s J100 Risk and Resilience Management of Water and Wastewater Systems standard is intended to help utilities assess risk and make decisions about where limited resources should be allocated to improve resilience.
Trust in Water said measurable approaches such as the URI can help utilities assess whether investments in infrastructure, emergency planning and operational preparedness are improving their ability to respond to disruption.
Peter Grevatt, Chief Executive Officer of The Water Research Foundation and Trust in Water Leadership Council member, said:
“Climate resilience in the water sector comes down to whether utilities are making careful plans and preparations to address the new challenges they will face from the rapidly changing climate. All water utilities including private, regulated providers are held to that standard and are measuring against it. The results show what sustained investment and professional emergency planning can do for a community.”
American Water reaches resilience target five years early
American Water set a target in 2020 to increase its weighted-average Utility Resilience Index score by 10% by 2030.
The company says it reached that target by the end of 2025, five years ahead of schedule.
Its current environmental goals list the water-system resilience target as achieved. American Water uses the URI to track improvements in its ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from incidents affecting water services.
The company attributes the improvement to measures including infrastructure investment, emergency planning and employee training.
AWWA says building resilience into utility risk management can support better allocation of resources and improve preparedness for incidents affecting water and wastewater systems.
Infrastructure investment remains central to climate adaptation
Water infrastructure can be exposed to a range of climate-related pressures, including heavier rainfall, flooding, drought, extreme temperatures and other weather events that can disrupt treatment and distribution systems.
Maintaining water utility resilience therefore involves more than emergency response. Long-term asset renewal, system redundancy, workforce preparedness and access to capital can all influence whether services continue during extreme conditions and how quickly they recover.
American Water currently expects to invest between $46 billion and $48 billion over the next decade in infrastructure renewal, system resilience, water quality, technology, operational efficiency and regulated acquisitions.
The company describes long-term infrastructure investment as part of its approach to hardening assets and maintaining service during extreme weather.
H2O Global News regularly covers the relationship between climate change and water infrastructure, including investment intended to improve drought, flood and network resilience.
Climate Week NYC puts infrastructure adaptation in focus
The discussion comes during Climate Week NYC 2026, which is taking place in New York from 20–27 September.
The event brings together businesses, governments, investors and civil society organisations to discuss climate action, infrastructure, finance and the transition to a lower-carbon economy.
For water utilities, the focus on adaptation raises questions about how resilience should be measured as well as how infrastructure improvements are financed and delivered.
Trust in Water argues that access to affordable capital remains an important part of that equation, particularly where utilities face substantial upgrades to ageing water and wastewater systems.
The wider industry challenge is to connect measurable resilience planning with sustained investment before extreme weather exposes weaknesses in critical infrastructure.
Source: Trust in Water
