Development of a guiding framework for sustainable urban water governance

Towards understanding governance for sustainable urban water management

Innovative methods presently affect all sectors of the national economy contributing to the progress and overall development of the economy, and the living standard worldwide. Innovations are equally necessary both in the private and in public sectors therefore, the original innovative ideas in each sector are greatly accepted. Similar concept is significant for companies dealing with urban water management. New methods are available mainly for capturing and reusing of rainwater in urban areas which leads to a positive impact on sustainable urban water management regarding today's water scarcity problems. This article describes some of the most popular innovative methods and examples used for rainwater harvesting, recycling and reuse. As a result, the evaluation of the most suitable water harvesting techniques related to sustainable water management, and their application in the city of Brno in Czech Republic are described.

Urban water management involves urban water supply (import, treatment and distribution of water), urban wastewater management (collection, treatment and disposal of urban sewage) and urban storm water management. Declining groundwater tables, polluted and declining sources of water, water scarcity in urban areas, unsatisfactory urban water supply and sanitation situation, pollution of receiving water bodies (including the ground water), and urban floods have become the concerns and issues of sustainable urban water management. This paper proposes a model for urban stormwater and sewage management which addresses these concerns and issues of sustainable urban water management. This model proposes segregation of the sewage into black water and greywater, and urban sub-watershed level stormwater-greywater management systems. During dry weather this system will be handling only the greywater and making the latter available as reclaimed water for reuse in place of the fresh water supply. During wet weather, the system will be taking care of (collection and treatment) both the storm water and the greywater, and the excess of the treated water will be disposed off through groundwater recharging. Application of this model in the Patiala city, Punjab, INDIA for selected urban sub-watersheds has been tried. Information and background data required for the conceptualization and design of the sub-watershed level urban stormwater-greywater management system was collected and the system has been designed for one of the sub-watersheds in the Patiala city. In this paper, the model for sustainable urban water management and the design of the Sub-watershed level Urban Stormwater-Greywater Management System are described.

Sustainable water management is increasingly essential in an age characterised by rapid population growth, urban and industrial development and climate change. Opportunities to promote conservation and water-use efficiencies remain attractive in directly reducing water demand. Smart water metering and the provision of detailed water-use feedback to consumers present exciting new opportunities for improved urban water management. This paper explores two smart water metering trials in New South Wales, Australia, which provided household water consumption feedback via (i) paper end-use reports and (ii) an online portal. This combination enabled a deeper exploration of the various impacts of detailed feedback enabled via smart water metering. The positive effects uncovered by the research present an important opportunity for smart water metering feedback to contribute towards more sustainable urban water management. Their summary contributes empirical evidence on the impacts for water utilities considering embarking on the smart water metering journey with their customers. The identification of future research and policy needs sets an agenda for smart water metering to promote a sustainable digital urban water future. Larger-scale trials are now required and utilities should integrate the design and plans for scalable advanced feedback programs at the outset of smart meter implementations.

van de Meene, Susan J. and Rebekah R. Brown, 2009. Delving into the “Institutional Black Box”: Revealing the Attributes of Sustainable Urban Water Management Regimes.Journal of the American Water Resources Association(JAWRA) 45(6):1448‐1464.Abstract: This paper is based on the proposition that the transition to sustainable urban water management has been hampered by the lack of insight into attributes of a sustainable urban water regime. Significant progress has been made in developing technical solutions to advance urban water practice, however it is the co‐evolution of the socio‐institutional and technical systems that enable a system‐wide transition. A systematic analysis of 81 empirical studies across a range of practice areas was undertaken to construct a schema of the sustainable urban water regime attributes. Attributes were identified and analyzed using a framework of nested management regime spheres: the administrative and regulatory system, inter‐organizational, intra‐organizational, and human resources spheres. The regime is likely to involve significant stakeholder involvement, collaborative inter‐organizational relationships, flexible and adaptive organizational cultures, and motivated and engaging employees. Comparison of the constructed sustainable and traditional regime attributes reveals that to realize sustainable urban water management in practice a substantial shift in governance is required. This difference emphasizes the critical need for explicitly supported strategies targeted at developing each management regime sphere to further enable change toward sustainable urban water management.

Green infrastructure for sustainable urban water management: Practices of five forerunner cities

This paper presents the local institutional and organizational development insights from a five-year ongoing interdisciplinary research project focused on advancing the implementation of sustainable urban water management. While it is broadly acknowledged that the inertia associated with administrative systems is possibly the most significant obstacle to advancing sustainable urban water management, contemporary research still largely prioritizes investigations at the technological level. This research is explicitly concerned with critically informing the design of methodologies for mobilizing and overcoming the administrative inertia of traditional urban water management practice. The results of fourteen in-depth case studies of local government organizations across Metropolitan Sydney primarily reveal that (i) the political institutionalization of environmental concern and (ii) the commitment to local leadership and organizational learning are key corporate attributes for enabling sustainable management. A typology of five organizational development phases has been proposed as both a heuristic and capacity benchmarking tool for urban water strategists, policy makers, and decision makers that are focused on improving the level of local implementation of sustainable urban water management activity. While this investigation has focused on local government, these findings do provide guideposts for assessing the development needs of future capacity building programs across a range of different institutional contexts.

Research was conducted to meet two objectives. The first was to identify the factors that assisted emergent leaders at a project level (‘project champions’) in publicly-managed Australian water agencies to successfully promote sustainable urban water management (SUWM). The second was to use this knowledge to develop a suite of management strategies to foster this form of the champion phenomenon. The primary rationale for the research was that the champion phenomenon has been an important, but poorly understood, catalyst for the adoption of SUWM in Australia. The research involved three phases. Phase 1 was a review of the international literature. Phase 2 was a multiple case study involving six water agencies and six project champions. Phase 3 was a field experiment where a leadership development program for 20 SUWM champions was designed, delivered and evaluated. The research found that ‘SUWM champions’ were emergent leaders who displayed distinctive personal attributes (e.g. specific traits and behaviours), worked in environments where there was resistance to the SUWM paradigm, and were adept at influencing others to adopt SUWM principles and practices. The research also found that the transformational (Bass, 1985), distributed (Gibb, 1954) and complexity (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007) models of leadership became relevant to, and helped to explain, typical champion-driven SUWM leadership processes at different times. Three conceptual models were developed to describe the factors that assist SUWM project champions in water agencies. The first is a three-phase model of typical champion-driven SUWM leadership processes, which highlights key champion behaviours during each phase, the role of other SUWM leaders and the importance of contextual factors. The second is a model that describes the individual attributes of champions (e.g. strongly developed traits) and enabling contextual factors (e.g. supportive organisational cultures). The third model explains how the champion phenomenon becomes influential as water agencies increasingly adopt the SUWM paradigm and several enabling contextual factors combine to form a ‘critical mass’. The research produced 28 management strategies to provide guidance on how to create a supportive leadership context for SUWM within water agencies, as well as how to attract, recruit, supervise and develop the leadership capacity of project champions. These strategies also address how to foster effective SUWM champions at an executive level, as well as encourage coordinated forms of group-based (distributed) leadership to advance SUWM. The efficacy of one of these strategies was examined by designing, delivering and evaluating the performance of a customised, six-month, leadership development program for 20 nascent project champions. A seven-tier evaluation framework was used that examined multiple dimensions of the program. Evaluation results for all tiers were strongly positive, with the estimated ‘return on investment’ being 190% after one year. The three theoretically-grounded conceptual models have substantially expanded the body of knowledge concerning SUWM champions. For example, these new models have helped to explain why some SUWM champions are more effective than others. In practice, the research has supported broader efforts to foster ‘water sensitive cities’ by producing the first set of evidence-based strategies to foster the champion phenomenon within water agencies.

This research aims to explore the feasibility of adopting urban symbiosis for sustainable urban water reduction and management through a bibliometric analysis of key literature. A Scopus-based systematic review was conducted to analyse journal articles related to urban symbiosis, water management, and water reduction, with a focus on their intersection towards achieving sustainability. The outcomes of the systematic review were analysed using bibliometric techniques to examine the evolution of publications, identify leading journals, and determine the authors and countries which have published the most papers on the topic. The research also conceptualised the benefits, barriers, and enablers associated with adopting urban symbiosis for water reduction and management. The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the potential implications and practical implications of urban symbiosis in the context of sustainable water management. The study contributes to the knowledge of the potential of urban symbiosis in addressing the challenges of water management in urban areas and gives insights to policymakers, urban planners, and practitioners interested in implementing sustainable water management practices in urban areas.

Small urban centres in the South West Pacific face many challenges regarding urban water management in the light of future uncertainties and climate change. Without implementing sustainable urban water management (SUWM), they risk adverse environmental and public health impacts, but little is known regarding the receptivity of urban water professionals towards its principles and practices. This paper assesses the willingness and ability of urban water managers from the region to implement SUWM. Results demonstrate that whilst aware of current failures, there was limited awareness of sustainable solutions, and a limited ability to identify benefits arising from SUWM implementation. There is a need to increase the opportunities for urban water professionals in the region to acquire skills and implement SUWM. This study identifies the capacity development needed in the region to increase receptivity to SUWM.

It has been acknowledged, in Australia and beyond, that existing urban water systems and management lead to unsustainable outcomes. Therefore, our current socio-technical systems, consisting of institutions, structures and rules, which guide traditional urban water practices, need to change. If a change towards sustainable urban water management (SUWM) practices is to occur, a transformation of our established social-technical configuration that shapes the behaviour and decision making of actors is needed. While some constructive innovations that support this transformation have occurred, most innovations remain of a technical nature. These innovative projects do not manage to achieve the widespread social and institutional change needed for further diffusion and uptake of SUWM practices. Social theory, and its research, is increasingly being recognised as important in responding to the challenges associated with evolving to a more sustainable form of urban water management. This paper integrates three areas of social theories around change in order to provide a conceptual framework that can assist with socio-technical system change. This framework can be utilised by urban water practitioners in the design of interventions to stimulate transitions towards SUWM.

Transitioning to more sustainable urban water management is widely accepted as an essential societal objective. While there has been significant progress in developing technical solutions to the challenges faced, numerous barriers remain at the regime level, indicating that further investigation into the regime is required. This paper reports on a social research project aimed at identifying capacity attributes of a more sustainable urban water management regime. Attributes were identified for the administrative and regulatory framework, inter- and intra-organisational and individual regime spheres. Over 125 urban water practitioners specialising in sustainability in Sydney and Melbourne were interviewed to identify the attributes of a more sustainable regime. The attributes reveal that a sustainable urban water management regime emphasises learning, diverse policy tools and institutional arrangements, together with interaction among stakeholders and professional disciplines. The interaction is characterised by respect, trust and mutual understanding. The sustainable regime attributes are compared to the traditional regime and reveal that while progress has been made towards a sustainable regime, additional improvement is required. Attributes identified across multiple regime spheres indicate potential focus areas for capacity building programs or reform efforts to more effectively enable regime change towards sustainable urban water management.

In Australia, examination of water problems has traditionally centred on the country’s frequent droughts and their impact on agricultural communities. However, since the 1980s, weather patterns have shifted and urban water storages have reached the lowest levels on record. Further, pollution from industry, agriculture and urban regions into waterways, creeks and rivers is degrading entire ecosystems. Studies have been carried out in the 1990s and early 2000s on the tools, techniques and policies to overcome these urban water problems. However, a major barrier to implementation is that the analyses remain largely situated in the fields of engineering, biology, and chemistry. Although some literature examines governance issues, it deals primarily with the professional water management sector, and the actions to be taken on a local scale (within Australia). The goal of this thesis was to transcend this boundary and consider whether barriers to sustainability are a symptom of broader political, social and economic shifts occurring in urban infrastructure in industrialised countries. Accounting for these shifts would provide a comprehensive understanding of the context in which these barriers occur, and improve the implementation of sustainable urban water management. Graham and Marvin’s Splintering Urbanism (Graham & Marvin, 2001) provides this comprehensive framework. Splintering Urbanism is an exploration of how complex social and economic shifts such as globalisation and privatisation intersect with rapidly evolving technologies and transform urban infrastructure networks from a singular centralised, public network to a more fragmented, complex set of networks that are ‘unbundled’. This thesis applied components of the Splintering Urbanism framework related to unbundling in an Australian urban water context. Two case studies in Sydney and Melbourne were conducted. The case studies found that the trends identified in Splintering Urbanism may act as a barrier to sustainable urban water management. However, it also found that the mere presence of these dynamics does not preclude the failure of sustainable urban water management. Rather, the effect depends on the context and institutional conditions. These conditions include: biophysical makeup of the region; the historical and contemporary culture of planning; political leadership; and the relationship between social and environmental advocates and the state and local water authorities. In both case studies, environmental sustainability has not been achieved. In Melbourne, due to a strong social advocacy sector and culture of state-wide planning, the effect on social sustainability, at least, has been minimal. Sydney, in contrast, has experienced a greater impact due to the institutional conditions. These include a lesser degree of state-wide planning and a ii divided policy culture that make the city vulnerable to fragmentation and unbundling. An additional finding showed that the environmental movement facilitates fragmentation and unbundling in Australia. It does so three ways. First, it advocates private sector participation, mechanisms, and ownership of urban water supply and treatment systems. Second, the “neoliberalisation” of environmental groups creates a philosophical division between environmental and social advocates in their solutions to water problems. Third, environmental advocates promote a decentralised approach to water supply and treatment. While decentralised systems may have environmental benefits, they also open institutional pathways to unbundling. Though the findings are specific to these regions, they can be generalised to comment on the effect of unbundling and the privatisation of public infrastructure and services. That is, without leadership and planning, the processes driving splintering become barriers to sustainability. If institutions continue to follow the paths identified in this study, greater fragmentation and social unsustainability may occur, resulting in increased ecological unsustainability.

To meet increasing urban water requirements in a sustainable way, there is a need to diversify future sources of supply and storage. However, to date, there has been a lag in the uptake of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) for diversifying water sources in urban areas. This study draws on examples of the use of MAR as an approach to support sustainable urban water management. Recharged water may be sourced from a variety of sources and in urban centers, MAR provides a means to recycle underutilized urban storm water and treated wastewater to maximize their water resource potential and to minimize any detrimental effects associated with their disposal. The number, diversity and scale of urban MAR projects is growing internationally due to water shortages, fewer available dam sites, high evaporative losses from surface storages, and lower costs compared with alternatives where the conditions are favorable, including water treatment. Water quality improvements during aquifer storage are increasingly being documented at demonstration sites and more recently, full-scale operational urban schemes. This growing body of knowledge allows more confidence in understanding the potential role of aquifers in water treatment for regulators. In urban areas, confined aquifers provide better protection for waters recharged via wells to supplement potable water supplies. However, unconfined aquifers may generally be used for nonpotable purposes to substitute for municipal water supplies and, in some cases, provide adequate protection for recovery as potable water. The barriers to MAR adoption as part of sustainable urban water management include lack of awareness of recent developments and a lack of transparency in costs, but most importantly the often fragmented nature of urban water resources and environmental management.

Towards sustainable urban water management: A critical reassessment