Local governments are key actors in adaptation to a changing climate, whether the threats and impacts are long-term (e.g., sea level rise, flooding, heat waves, etc) or short-term (e.g., hurricane/cyclone, storm surge, etc). Local councils plan, provide and maintain physical infrastructures (e.g., roads, bridges, water and sewerage, drainage, waste disposal and public facilities), which are interdependent. A disruption of service in one infrastructure can cascade through the infrastructure network and produce a compound effect on the end users and a ripple effect on the economy. Modeling such interdependencies can play an important role in local government decision making, including: (a) understanding the dynamics of the whole infrastructure system so that future investments can be optimized and (b) identifying existing critical local infrastructure systems that are crucial to maintain urban services and develop appropriate risk mitigation and adaptation plans. In this paper, we shed light on some of the major concerns of a local government around disaster planning and climate change adaptation and discuss how infrastructure interdependency modeling can address them. The capabilities and suitability of three possible modeling approaches – agent-based modeling, system dynamics and network flow models – are evaluated. We present a small scale case study using an agent-based approach for developing a sea level rise adaptation strategy for the infrastructure system of a local council in Sydney. Finally, we identify the key research challenges to support local government decision-makers involved in climate-adapted infrastructure management.