Enhancing Water Infrastructure Resilience in Response to Climate Change: Evidence From South Africa

Climate change is intensifying extreme weather events worldwide, placing unprecedented stress on water infrastructure systems. As climate variability increases, water utilities face mounting challenges in maintaining infrastructure integrity. This study, conducted in South Africa, quantifies the relationship between climate variability and water infrastructure resilience through empirical analysis of 43 years of historical data spanning 1980 to 2023. The article uses correlation, regression, and time‐series forecasting techniques to examine how extreme weather events, specifically floods and droughts, impact pipeline infrastructure performance metrics, including pipe failures, supply interruptions, and economic losses. The analysis reveals strong correlations between climate events and pipeline failures (flood‐pipe failure 𝑟 = 0.78; drought‐pipe failure 𝑟 = 0.64), with regression modelling showing that drought events have a 47% greater impact on pipe failures than flood incidents (coefficients 6.19 vs 4.21). Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) forecasting indicates an annual increase of approximately 4.5 pipe failures over the next two decades, indicating growing infrastructure vulnerability without intervention. The study concludes that enhancing resilience requires an integrated approach combining structural improvements with distributed systems and nature‐based solutions, with implementation priorities guided by the vulnerability of infrastructure components to specific climate stressors. These findings provide water managers with a quantitative basis for resilience planning that addresses immediate climate threats and long‐term adaptation needs.