ABSTRACT
Increasing attention is being paid to the potential impacts of climate change on urban environments. Detection of climate-driven trends at the scale of individual cities is problematic due to the high inter-annual variability of local weather and confounding factors such as land-use change or urbanization effects. The physical constituents of built areas and human activities within urban centres also interact with other climate drivers. Water resources planning has traditionally viewed climate as stationary, a position that is increasingly untenable given that infrastructure can be in place for many decades, even centuries. In addition to water availability and impact on the natural environment, climate change also affects water resource planning through changing patterns of water consumption and patterns of seniority in water rights. There is no doubt that the populations, infrastructure and ecology of cities are at risk from the impacts of climate change.
