Designing Adaptive Systems for Enhancement of Urban Water Resilience

Abstract

Rapid urbanization and climate change pose challenges to policymakers in the 21st century. In particular water infrastructure systems are under stress and the design and planning approaches from the past may no longer be sufficient for the future. Several new approaches have been developed to support planners, designers and decision-makers in moving towards better infrastructure systems. The challenge is to find practical approaches that address the broad spectrum of uncertainties that water infrastructure systems face, including socio-political uncertainties. This paper proposes that practical approaches can be assembled from a toolbox consisting of different techniques, methodologies and procedures framed by a step-wise approach consisting of the Adaptation Pathways, Adaptive Policymaking and Real Options Analysis approaches. However, rather than seeing future uncertainties as a threat, this approach takes as key premise that uncertainty provides opportunities and flexibility has an important value. This is demonstrated by analysing the historic development of Singapore’s water infrastructure.