While our vision may be integrated and holistic, our approach to engineering planning and project implementation looks more traditional than transformational — producing large-scale centralized facilities, which, once built, will have limited “adaptive capacity.” Adaptive capacity” means the ability of an engineered system to be changed or modified to cope with both new opportunities, as well as unanticipated conditions that undermine our assumptions.

The Montecito case illustrates the potential vulnerability of reliance on hydrological models that were developed and calibrated under assumptions of climate stationarity and acceptable aleatory risks. When two extreme events occur one after another, the uncertainties of compounding hazards suddenly introduce externalities (massive erosion combined with sediment and debris flows) that are not incorporated into the engineering modeling tools employed by decision-makers, public safety officials, and first responders.

We are confronted with the convergence of at least two forces that will require a level of leadership and innovation unprecedented in our history—one is the deep uncertainty of climate change, and the other is the extreme complexity of our radical transition to one-water solutions—and all of this while trying to maintain aging and outdated infrastructure. It’s unprecedented in part because each of these realities is accompanied by a significant breakdown in our traditional management tools and rational methods.

When looking back at this project, it is the completion of those two deals that stand out as the only successful accomplishments of CDM Development Corporation, a short-lived subsidiary of CDM that I led — all else failed. This is a story of the tail that wagged the dog. (Photo: Scottsdale CAP Water Treatment Plant Dedication, 21 February 1987. Left to Right: Patrick E. Gallagher, Hon. Herbert R. Drinkwater, and Paul R. Brown)

We will all need exceptional courage to help communities and their decision-makers plan for the deep uncertainty and surprising events resulting from climate change combined with the complexity of the system-of-systems approaches that make our holistic vision possible. We are not nearly prepared enough for the worst consequences resulting from this combination of uncertainty and complexity.

As engineers, architects, and builders, we have an important role on this “land lobster.” We oversee the exoskeleton, including pincer and crusher claw design, construction, operations, and maintenance. Of course, the living heart and body of the city is inside the exoskeleton. It has no observable shape other than its eyes, antennae, and shell. And the living city takes the exoskeleton entirely for granted — never really thinks about it.

From my perspective, this annual conference brings together the water industry’s most dedicated community of change agents — working enthusiastically to disrupt the status quo. And at the same, it’s a very diverse group of change agents, representing water utilities, technology companies, and NGO’s.

Incorporating extreme uncertainty into water resources management and planning is an imperative for sound decision-making. Yet there are only a few established methods and tools for accomplishing that goal. In addition, there are many flawed methods that are inadvertently employed in our current practices – which we will explain.

In December 2014, the Singapore Economic Development Board partnered with The New Yorker magazine to publish another installment of its “Singapore Sessions” series. A PDF copy of the insert included in The New Yorker is available here. A complete transcript of the interview from which the published article was drawn follows:

Large-scale capital investments in traditional gray infrastructure for water supply, stormwater management, and flood protection are increasingly risky and difficult to justify.

On 11 April 2013, I presented a lunchtime keynote at SAWPA’s annual Santa Ana River Watershed 2013 conference in Costa Mesa, CA. It reflected on Integrated Resources Planning in Southern California, my experiences, and where we may be headed. Here’s the transcript of that keynote.

From his office on the top floor of a mid-rise building at the west end of LAX, Roger has a panoramic view to the north, east, and south. It encompasses both the airport’s north and south runways; the myriad of taxiways, tank farms, hangers, utility buildings, and piped infrastructure located between the western edge of the airport and the central terminals; and directly to the east beyond the other infrastructure, the wave-like roof-line of the new Bradley Terminal building designed by architect Curtis Fentress.

Will we remain leaders in lagging technologies – following the parade with brooms and shovels, cleaning up environmental damage and compensating for the impacts of economic development and climate change?

I want to make a strong case that imaginative thinking is a fundamental differentiator between CDM and many of our competitors. That competitive strength results from imagining something new — from the belief that our understanding can be improved, that our intentional and inadvertent acts of destructiveness and waste can be reduced, and that we can successfully improve our environment and infrastructure – more effectively integrating our natural and our built worlds.

My colleague Vladimir Novotny has done a good job condensing the several thousand years of water infrastructure history into four distinct stages – or paradigms as he calls them.