West Orange, N.J. (September 21, 2026) - 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. Resilience is not a slogan. It is measurable, and one of the clearest benchmarks in the water sector is the American Water Works Association’s Utility Resilience Index (URI).
The URI evaluates how ready a utility is to handle an emergency and how quickly it can safely restore service. It scores operational and financial capability, emergency response and business continuity planning, and the social vulnerability of the communities served. That last factor matters, because the same storm produces very different outcomes depending on whether the system underneath a community has been maintained and the utility has the 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.”
A Measurable Record of Progress
In June, American Water announced that it had met its Utility Resilience Index goal five years ahead of schedule. The company set a target in 2020 to raise its weighted average URI score by 10 percent by 2030 and reached that mark as of year-end 2025, driven by targeted infrastructure investment, stronger emergency planning and ongoing employee training.
AWWA, which developed the index, notes that building resilience into a utility’s risk management framework improves response and recovery and reduces the chance customers lose service at all. Reaching a resilience goal early is not a milestone a utility can announce without the capital and planning behind it.
Climate Adaptation Runs Through Infrastructure
Climate Week NYC, running September 20 to 27, is organized around energy, impact and collective action, with buildings and infrastructure and climate finance among its focus areas. Water sits at the center of all of them. Heavier rainfall, more frequent flooding, longer droughts and extreme cold all land first on water and wastewater systems, and the cost of a failure is borne by the community.
Adapting those systems takes capital on a scale most communities cannot raise alone. American Water plans to invest approximately $48 billion in capital improvements over the next 10 years, covering infrastructure renewal, water quality, resiliency, technology and system acquisitions. That is the kind of sustained, long-horizon investment climate adaptation requires, and it is a core reason communities partner with regulated providers in the first place.
Resilience Depends on Access to Capital
Measurement and investment work together. A utility can identify exactly where it is vulnerable, but closing that gap still depends on affordable financing. That is why Trust in Water continues to support expanding eligibility for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund to all wastewater providers, so that every customer benefits from low-cost capital regardless of who owns the system serving them.
Climate risk does not sort communities by ownership structure. Neither should the tools available to prepare for it.