Speaker
Sarah Fletcher, assistant professor of civil and environmental, Stanford University; Engineering and Center Fellow,  Woods Institute for the Environment

Title
Adaptive and affordable urban water supply planning

Abstract
Climate change is increasing hydrological variability and water stress in many regions, leading urban water planners to invest in expensive new water supply infrastructure. These costly investments raise water bills, challenging affordable water access for low-income populations. Adaptive infrastructure planning, in which planners develop infrastructure incrementally if-and-when needed, has the potential to enable water reliability in a changing climate with less investment. Using case studies in California, I present advances toward 1) quantifying the impact of climate change on urban water affordability and 2) reducing the cost of urban water infrastructure development by adapting to climate signals.

Bio
Sarah Fletcher is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and Center Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.  She uses computational systems modeling to advance resilient and equitable water resources management for an uncertain future. Her approach integrates methods from hydrology, climate science, policy analysis, optimization and data science.  Sarah holds a PhD in engineering systems from MIT, an SM in technology and policy from MIT, and a BA in physics and economics from the University of Pennsylvania. You can learn more about her work at www.fletcherlab.science