Deadline: 22-Nov-22
The Water Research Foundation (WRF) is seeking applications for Integrating Climate Change Impacts with Wet Weather Management, Capital Improvement, and Stream Network Enhancement.
This project is funded by The Water Research Foundation (WRF) as part of WRF’s Research Priority Program.
Objectives
- To enhance precipitation projection and modeling techniques with risk‐based criteria to mitigate risks for utilities (e.g., sewer overflows, flooding, stream network deterioration)
- To advance current practices for climate change rainfall statistics and projections by region, and identify research gaps and other areas for refinement
- To advance an integrated and risk-based approach for adapting water infrastructure systems and capital improvement planning to climate change while enhancing the protection of stream networks to meet receiving water quality requirements and mitigate wet weather flows
Research Approach
- Throughout this project, the research team will emphasize how to better integrate future climate projections (under both warm and cold climate impacts) into currently applied planning and design tools relevant to utilities and municipalities. The research team will conduct a comprehensive literature review, including WRF’s research efforts to date. In addition, the research team will evaluate the stateof-the-practice and advancement in precipitation projection and modeling techniques, with a focus on how these modeling techniques could be integrated with risk‐based criteria to mitigate risks for utilities and municipalities (e.g., sewer overflows, flooding, stream network deterioration).
- Special consideration should be given to variations among different climate regions, including coastal communities where climate-induced sea level rise and storm surge would pose additional challenges. Different flood types with regional variations will be considered.
Funding Information
- Applicants may request up to $200,000 in WRF funds for this project.
- The anticipated period of performance for this project is 24 months from the contract start date.
Expected Deliverables
- A stand-alone literature review synthesis document, including annotations for the list of publications and resources used.
- Two invitation-only virtual workshops, along with workshop planning and all supporting materials (e.g., agenda, presentations, meeting notes, and workshop summary).
- An interactive utility-facing guidance document.
- This document will include synthesis of case studies across different climate regions and a decision support framework towards projected future infrastructure needs and capital improvement investment decisions based on climate change considerations.
- In addition, this document will include a chapter and supporting technical appendix that summarize the knowledge gaps, research needs, and preliminary project concepts for recommended research projects, including recommended means to address those remaining gaps.
- Broader outreach:
- Webcasts and public outreach materials (e.g., infographics that can help communicate research findings to both utilities and general public).
- Submitting at least one open access peer-reviewed journal paper and additional outreach products as applicable.
Eligibility Criteria
Proposals will be accepted from domestic or international entities, including educational institutions, research organizations, governmental agencies, and consultants or other for-profit entities.
For more information, visit https://www.waterrf.org/open-rfps