Abstract
Many cities are facing various water-related challenges caused by rapid urbanization and climate change. Moreover, a megacity may pose a greater risk due to its scale and complexity for coping with impending challenges. Infrastructure and governance also differ by the level of development of a city which indicates that the analysis of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and water governance are site-specific. We examined the status of IWRM of Seoul by using the City Blueprint® Approach which consists of three different frameworks: (1) Trends and Pressures Framework (TPF), (2) City Blueprint Framework (CBF) and (3) the water Governance Capacity Framework (GCF). The TPF summarizes the main social, environmental and financial pressures that may impede water management. The CBF assesses IWRM of the urban water cycle. Finally, the GCF identifies key barriers and opportunities to develop governance capacity. The results indicate that nutrient recovery from wastewater, stormwater separation, and operation cost recovery of water and sanitation services are priority areas for Seoul. Furthermore, the local sense of urgency, behavioral internalization, consumer willingness to pay, and financial continuation are identified as barriers limiting Seoul’s governance capacity. We also examined and compared the results with other mega-cities, to learn from their experiences and plans to cope with the challenges in large cities.
Highlights
More than half of the world’s population resides in urban areas, and this figure is projected to increase to 66% by 2050 [1]
The aim of this study is to identify barriers, enablers, and city-to-city learning opportunities to improve Seoul’s water management and resilience
Among the 11 Asian cities analyzed with City Blueprint Framework (CBF), Singapore, with a Trends and Pressure Index (TPI) of 1.0, and Taipei, with a TPI of 1.4, were most comparable to Seoul
Summary
More than half of the world’s population resides in urban areas, and this figure is projected to increase to 66% by 2050 [1]. Primarily due to the concentration of people in a relatively small area, cities act as centres of intense resource consumption and pollution [3,4]. Rapid urbanization along with the effects of climate change creates multiple challenges regarding water quality, water scarcity, and flooding resulting in high vulnerability and, sometimes, unforeseen consequences [5]. These risks are amplified in cities that lack the necessary infrastructure and/or institutional arrangements with the adaptive capacity to. A sustainable city requires appropriate and efficient management and ofmanagement a large variety of control issues, of notably availability of sufficient clean freshwater and the andcontrol efficient and a largethe variety of issues, notably the availability of sufficient protection against flooding a prerequisite for health, economic social well-being clean freshwater and theasprotection against flooding as a development prerequisite and for health, economic ofdevelopment their inhabitants [7]
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