Insights and future directions of transdisciplinary practice in the urban water sector

Rethinking urban water management: Experimentation as a way forward?

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.

Risks and tensions in water industry innovation: understanding adoption of decentralised water systems from a socio-technical transitions perspective

Sustainable urban water management is an increasingly important socio-political objective, however implementation remains ad hoc. While numerous tools and technologies have been developed to achieve sustainable urban water management, significant socio-institutional barriers remain. These impediments include, among others, institutional fragmentation, poor political leadership and technological lock-in. Exacerbated by a lack of theory and conceptual frameworks to link sustainable urban water management principles with on-ground execution, these barriers contribute to low levels of system-wide implementation capacity. Institutional capacity building is advocated in the sustainable urban water literature as a strategy to facilitate implementation; however, institutional capacity building has limited ability to provide an overview of regime operation, considered critical for enabling system-wide change. Focusing on processes, actor agency and institutions, the field of governance studies provides a useful perspective for understanding holistic regime operation and change. Yet the environmental governance literature remains contested; many scholars support a network or market governance approach while others advocate for hybrid approaches. Moreover, the governance systems needed for enabling sustainable urban water management have been given limited attention. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to develop a guiding framework for sustainable urban water governance. Through an emergent research design, systematically drawing on the perspectives of scholars and leading Australian urban water sustainability practitioners, likely attributes of a sustainable urban water management regime were identified. The attributes were focused through the lens of individual, organisational, inter-organisational relationships, and administrative and regulatory regime components. A comparison of the scholarly and practitioner perspectives, together with governance, regime and institutional literatures, explored which governance modes are most likely to enable sustainable urban water management. Overall, this investigation revealed a suite of likely sustainable urban water management regime attributes that are substantially different from traditional and contemporary practice highlighting the considerable regime change required to enable sustainable urban water management. The scholars supported a network governance approach, similar to current adaptive governance and conceptual scholarly urban water management projections, with interdependent actor relations and largely informal administrative arrangements. In comparison, the practitioners advocated hybrid governance arrangements comprising hierarchical and network modes, including a formal administrative framework, with mutually dependent and interconnected actor relationships to facilitate implementation of site specific sustainable urban water management solutions. Both scholars and practitioners supported using a variety of policy instruments, including market governance instruments. The outcomes of this investigation suggest the hybrid governance approach supported by practitioners extends current scholarship by providing detailed information on regime attributes and operation, which can provide insight for practical implementation of network governance approaches which are supported in current urban water management and adaptive governance literature. Additionally, the hybrid approach offers suggestions for successfully integrating the three ideal governance modes and reducing potential tension among the modes. In practice, the proposed framework could be used to design capacity building programs and policy initiatives drawing on mixed governance approaches. To extend this research and improve insight into regime operation and governance dynamics, future research testing the tentative sustainable urban water governance framework in other locations is required.

This thesis reveals how adaptive governance attributes and principles can provide guidance for and foster practices associated with advancing sustainable urban water management in GS contexts. Drawing on the context of Bangladesh’s urban water sector, it further sheds light on the role of adaptive governance in improving capacities (i.e. institutional, organisation and individual actor) at different city-scales to influence the pathways to sustainable development. Developing these capacities to effectively guide sustainability transformational processes depends on key enablers such as multi-level and polycentric institutions, participatory approaches, networking and bridging organisations, leadership, and learning.

The water sector today faces a complex range of challenges which mean it is increasingly important for water service providers (WSPs) to develop investment strategies that address growing uncertainty about operational, environmental, social, and economic constraints. Asset management provides an overarching framework within which infrastructure investment strategies can be formulated. While asset management is primarily concerned with maintaining service delivery, the concept can be extended to encapsulate broader sustainability objectives. In this chapter, we focus on the two main categories of capital investment: asset acquisition and asset renewals. Traditionally in the urban water sector, both types of investment have been undertaken within a framework focused on water supply, sewage disposal, and stormwater management separately. Increasingly, however, integrated urban water management (IUWM) concepts are being applied to address the broader sustainability, liveability, and productivity objectives of communities. Progress in implementing change is, however, constrained by lock-in effects of legacy infrastructure and associated institutional arrangements. Nevertheless, innovation at the scheme and project level still occurs. This leads to an overarching process of system hybridisation, the key factors behind this process being the normative values and risk perception of decision makers and other stakeholders. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the type of analysis that is undertaken to support investment decisions leading to this hybridisation. The first involves a traditional like-for-like pipe renewal, whereas the second relates to asset acquisition aligned with broader IUWM concepts. Both case studies highlight that the relative worth of an investment depends strongly on how broader environmental and social factors are considered. These are increasingly influencing infrastructure investment decisions in the transition to more sustainable urban water management.

The concept of sustainable urban water management involves managing the urban water cycle in a holistic manner by integrating the water supply, wastewater and stormwater management of a city to achieve better assimilation of the urban and natural water cycles. In response to the emergence to this new paradigm, decision support models have been developed to facilitate integrated modeling of the urban water cycle and to provide functionality for comparing options for alternative water management options. Outputs typically include indicators such as whole life costs, water flow indicators and energy use. Available models however have shortcomings and tend to have limited capacity to incorporate urban land use changes and the significant but related effects that different urbanization scenarios will have on the urban water cycle. Against this background, the Dynamic Urban Water Simulation Model (DUWSiM) has been developed. DUWSiM is a computer based model that links a cellular automata land use dynamics model (MOLAND) with concepts from existing water balance models. DUWSiM simulates major components of the urban water cycle including, evaporation, runoff, water demand, water supply and wastewater on a daily time step and incorporates urban land use change scenarios on an annual basis for 20 years into the future. DUWSiM has been applied to the Greater Dublin Water Supply area in Ireland to assess the effects of four urban development scenarios based on regional planning policies on water demand and stormwater runoff from 2007 - 2026. It was shown that significant differences in water demand and stormwater runoff exist between urban planning scenarios and it was concluded that urban planners and urban water managers need to collaborate in order to develop effective long-term strategies for the urban water sector. The scenarios assessed were all based on the same population and economic projections and all assumed low and medium density development of urban fabric. Future research should assess the combined effects of regional planning policies, population and economic projections, climate change and urban form (low density vs. high density/compact development) on the urban water cycle.

Business model in the context of Sustainable Urban Water Management - A comparative assessment between two urban regions in Australia and Germany

Worldwide, the need for transformative change in urban water management is acknowledged by scientists and policy makers. The effects of climate change and developments such as urbanization, the European Water Framework Directive, and societal concerns about the sustainability of urban water system force the sector to adapt. In The Netherlands, a shift towards integration of spatial planning and water management can be observed. Despite major changes in water management policy and approach, changes in the physical urban water management infrastructure remain limited to incremental solutions and demonstration projects. Policy studies show that institutional factors and professional perceptions are important factors for application of innovations in urban water management. An online survey among Dutch urban water management professionals demonstrates that according to most respondents, optimization of the current system is sufficient to achieve both European and national objectives for sustainable urban water management. The respondents are most concerned with the effects of climate change on urban water systems. In contrast to current policy of the national government, priority factors that should be addressed to achieve a more sustainable urban water system are improving knowledge of local urban water systems, capacity building, developing trust between stakeholders, and improving involvement of elected officials and citizens.

The total urban water supply in Libya is about 600 million cubic meter per year, of which more than 90% came from groundwater. Surface water resources are minimal and Libya relies on wells, desalination and transported water for urban water supply. Transported water supply is essentially targeted towards the agricultural sector; however, the share of the urban sector has been increased to cope with increasing demand. This paper focuses on the organization of urban water sector with regards to institutional level and asset level, trying to high light the problems facing urban water sector and proposes solutions. In addition to the newly re-established Water and Wastewater Company, there are six main players in the urban water sector today that duplicate institutional and asset-based functions. Three of them deal with supply side (Desalination Company, Water Authority, and Man-made River Authority) and the other three deal with demand side (Ministry of Utilities, Project Execution Authority, and Environment Authority). After assessing the current situation of the urban water sector mainly around organizational consideration, one can conclude that in terms of institutional setup there is no clarity around supply/demand decisions. On the asset-related side, water and wastewater operations have been confused by frequent re-organizations. Apart from fragmentation, overstaffing of Water and Wastewater Company is significant, especially in light of the level of service provided to consumers. In order to build a professional urban water sector, in terms of institutional and asset-related levels, clear key functions for both levels have been proposed.

Governance experimentation and factors of success in socio-technical transitions in the urban water sector

Domestic end-users’ participation in urban water management is essential to achieving improved water delivery system that meet the needs of all urban dwellers in Ghana. This paper examined how domestic end-users can effectively participate in managing urban water in Wa. The study used semi-structured questionnaires and key informant interviews with a sample of 379 households and two staff from Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC). Kendall’s coefficient of concordance analysis and content analysis were the analytical techniques employed. It found that households’ level of participationin urban water management was 14%. Results of the Kendall’s analysis showed a coefficient of 0.59, which indicates that there is a high agreement level among households that the low level of participation is attributed to GWCL’s lack of trust in end-users’ capacity to make meaningful inputs. It identifies formation of urban zonal water management committees, communication and information sharing, operational transparency and assigning specific roles to end-users as some of the strategies for improving participation in urban water management. These findings have implications for the realisation of the Ghana National Water Policy objective of participatory decision-making in urban water management. It is important that GWCL streamlines its operations and sensitise end-users on its operations
 Keywords: End-users, Participation, Urban Water, Management, Challenges

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.

During the past decades, the traditional state monopoly in urban water management has been debated heavily, resulting in different forms and degrees of private sector involvement across the globe. Since the 1990s, China has also started experiments with new modes of urban water service management and governance in which the private sector is involved. It is premature to conclude whether the various forms of private sector involvement will successfully overcome the major problems (capital shortage, inefficient operation, and service quality) in China’s water sector. But at the same time, private sector involvement in water provisioning and waste water treatments seems to have become mainstream in transitional China.

Urbanization impacts on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the water infrastructure in China: Trade-offs among sustainable development goals (SDGs)