Climate change may double water bills

A study published July 8 in Nature Sustainability by Stanford University researchers Jennifer Parker and Sarah Fletcher finds that climate change could nearly double residential water bills in some U.S. cities, particularly in the West, over the next two decades. The study focuses on United States — Santa Cruz, California, where median bills for the poorest residents could rise from $60 to $111 per month under a drier climate scenario, pushing over 5% of households to spend a third of their income on water. The research highlights that costly drought-resilience projects like desalination and water reuse, financed through rate increases, pit affordability against reliability. The study also notes that water costs have risen three times faster than inflation over 20 years, and extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene (2024) caused $3.7 billion in damage to North Carolina water systems. Federal funding for water infrastructure has fallen from 63% in 1977 to 9% in 2017. The authors call for state and federal interventions, including grant programs and a permanent low-income water assistance program.