WEST ORANGE, NJ — As climate leaders convene in New York for Climate Week NYC, Trust in Water is highlighting how private, regulated water utilities are measuring and strengthening their ability to withstand extreme weather.

One of the clearest benchmarks in the water sector is the American Water Works Association’s Utility Resilience Index (URI), which provides a measurable framework for evaluating how prepared a utility is to respond to an emergency and how quickly it can safely restore service.

The URI evaluates operational and financial capability, emergency response and business continuity planning, as well as the social vulnerability of the communities served. The latter factor recognizes that the effects of an extreme weather event can vary significantly depending on the condition of the underlying water infrastructure and a utility’s capacity to respond.

“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,” said Peter Grevatt, Chief Executive Officer of The Water Research Foundation and Trust in Water Leadership Council member. “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.”

Utility Resilience Index Provides Measurable Benchmark

In June, American Water announced that it had met its Utility Resilience Index goal five years ahead of schedule.

The company established a target in 2020 to increase its weighted average URI score by 10% by 2030. It reached that target as of year-end 2025, driven by targeted infrastructure investment, stronger emergency planning and ongoing employee training.

AWWA, which developed the index, notes that incorporating resilience into a utility’s risk management framework can improve response and recovery while reducing the likelihood of service disruptions.

For water utilities, the URI provides a way to evaluate resilience beyond individual emergency-response plans by considering the operational, financial and community factors that influence how a system responds to and recovers from an extreme event.

Climate Adaptation Depends on Water Infrastructure

Climate Week NYC, running Sept. 20–27, is organized around energy, impact and collective action, with buildings and infrastructure and climate finance among its focus areas.

Water infrastructure intersects with each of those areas as heavier rainfall, more frequent flooding, longer droughts and extreme cold place additional demands on water and wastewater systems. When those systems fail, the effects extend beyond the utility itself to the communities and businesses that depend on reliable service.

Adapting water infrastructure to those conditions requires sustained capital investment. American Water plans to invest approximately $48 billion in capital improvements over the next 10 years, including infrastructure renewal, water quality, resiliency, technology and system acquisitions.

That type of long-term investment provides utilities with the resources to address aging infrastructure while also incorporating resilience into system upgrades and new projects.

Resilience Requires Access to Long-Term Capital

Measuring resilience and investing in improvements are closely connected. A utility can identify infrastructure vulnerabilities and emergency-response gaps, but addressing those weaknesses ultimately depends on access to affordable capital.

Trust in Water continues to support expanding eligibility for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund to all wastewater providers, arguing that every customer should have access to low-cost capital regardless of the ownership structure of the system serving them.

Climate risks do not distinguish between communities based on who owns their water infrastructure. For utilities, resilience planning therefore involves not only emergency preparedness and infrastructure condition, but also the financial capacity to make sustained improvements before extreme weather exposes system vulnerabilities.

For more information on Trust in Water, visit www.trustinh2o.com.