City-to-city learning to enhance urban water management: The contribution of the City Blueprint Approach (original) (raw)

The City Blueprint Approach: Urban Water Management and Governance in Cities in the U.S

Environmental management, 2018

In this paper, we assess the challenges of water, waste and climate change in six cities across the U.S.: New York City, Boston, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Portland and Los Angeles. We apply the City BlueprintApproach which consists of three indicator assessments: (1) the Trends and Pressures Framework (TPF), (2) the 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 provides an integrated overview of the management performances within the urban watercycle. Finally, the GCF provides a framework to identify key barriers and opportunities to develop governance capacity. The GCF has only been applied in NYC. Results show that all cities face pressures from heat risk. The management performances regarding resource efficiency and resource recovery from wastewater and solid waste show considerable room for improvement. Moreover, stormwater separat...

Urban Water Governance and Learning-Time for More Systemic Approaches

Sustainability, 2020

Social learning, especially triple-loop social learning involving institutional and governance changes, has great potential to address urban water issues such as flooding, drought, and pollution. It facilitates urban transition and the adoption of more systemic approaches and innovations. Social learning in water governance is a growing field, but the triple-loop learning concept remains vague and underexplored. Additionally, the focus is often on how social learning can contribute to progress with little attention being paid to barriers to learning. The aim of this paper is to increase understanding of triple-loop social learning to improve the "learning infrastructure". It investigates key learning barriers for realizing green (livable) and adaptive cities in Malmö and Gothenburg, Sweden. Integration of nature-based solutions in spatial planning and development of these cities has been slow. The results found three types of barriers contributing to this: systemic (disconnecting parts with the whole); opacity (reducing communication between error detection and correction); and process-related (reducing the adoption of innovations). The paper contributes to understanding the social learning barriers for implementing planning. These insights could help overcome "adaptation inertia" and speed up policy learning towards sustainability and resilience.

The Challenges of Water Management and Governance in Cities

Water

Combined impacts of sea-level rise, river flooding, increased frequency and magnitude of extreme rainfall, heatwaves, water scarcity, water pollution, ageing or lacking infrastructures for water, wastewater and solid waste in rapidly urbanising regions in the world call for improved water management and governance capacity in cities to accelerate the transition to water-wise cities. The sixteen contributions to this Special Issue create further awareness and present solutions on integrated approaches, advanced water management practices and water governance strategies. It is concluded that cities require a long-term strategy and a multilevel water governance approach. Research has shown how important it is to involve the civil society and private parties early on in this process to create success. Collaboration among cities and regions by sharing best practices for rapid implementation are crucial to cope with nearly all Sustainable Development Goals.

The city blueprint: experiences with the implementation of 24 indicators to assess the sustainability of the urban water cycle

Water Science & Technology: Water Supply, 2013

Climate change, population growth and increased consumption, coupled with urbanization, are all placing increased pressure on water management. This global challenge can often best be addressed at the local level, e.g. in cities by optimizing the role of civil society. Although there are approaches for assessing the sustainability of countries and cities, there is no dedicated framework for the assessment of the sustainability of urban water management. We have therefore compiled a comprehensive list of indicators (the city blueprint) for this. The city blueprint is proposed as a first step towards gaining a better understanding and addressing the challenges of integrated urban water management (IUWM). City blueprints will enable the IUWM of cities to be compared, and stimulate the exchange of success stories (good practices) between cities to address the enormous IUWM challenges which lie ahead. The city blueprint provides a quick scan and baseline assessment. It comprises elements from a variety of methodologies, such as water footprint, urban metabolism and ecosystem services. The indicators have been subdivided into eight broad categories, i.e. (1) water security following the water footprint approach developed by Hoekstra and Chapagain (2007), (2) water quality, which includes surface water and groundwater, (3) drinking water, (4) sanitation, (5) infrastructure, (6) climate robustness, (7) biodiversity and attractiveness and (8) governance. Experience using city blueprints for the cities of Rotterdam, Maastricht and Venlo (in the Netherlands) have been included as practical

Leeuwen, C.J. van, J. Frijns, A. van Wezel, & F.H.M. van de Ven (2012). City blueprints: 24 indicators to assess the sustainability of the urban water cycle. Water Resources Management 26(8), 2177-2197

Water Resources Management

Climate change, population growth and increased consumption, coupled with urbanization, are all placing increased pressure on water management. This global challenge can often best be addressed at the local level, e.g. in cities by optimizing the role of civil society. Although there are approaches for assessing the sustainability of countries and cities, there is no dedicated framework for the assessment of the sustainability of urban water management. We have therefore compiled a comprehensive list of indicators (the city blueprint) for this. The city blueprint is proposed as a first step towards gaining a better understanding and addressing the challenges of integrated urban water management (IUWM). City blueprints will enable the IUWM of cities to be compared, and stimulate the exchange of success stories (good practices) between cities to address the enormous IUWM challenges which lie ahead. The city blueprint provides a quick scan and baseline assessment. It comprises elements from a variety of methodologies, such as water footprint, urban metabolism and ecosystem services. The indicators have been subdivided into eight broad categories, i.e. (1) water security following the water footprint approach developed by Hoekstra and Chapagain , (2) water quality, which includes surface water and groundwater, (3) drinking water, (4) sanitation, (5) infrastructure, (6) climate robustness, (7) biodiversity and attractiveness and (8) governance. Experience using city blueprints for the cities of Rotterdam, Maastricht and Venlo (in the Netherlands) have been included as practical Water Resour Manage (examples. It was concluded that simplicity (ease of calculation and data availability), transparency and ease of communication makes the blueprint a valuable tool for policy makers, decision makers and resource managers as a first step in the process of understanding, envisioning, developing and implementing measures to transform the water management of cities. The best results are obtained when all the stakeholders are involved and connected right from the start.

Integrated Water Resources Management in Cities in the World: Global Challenges

Water Resources Management

Water scarcity and accessibility remain persistently amongst the most prominent global challenges. Although there is a wide agreement among international organizations that Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and water governance are key to overcome water-related challenges, global assessments of the progress made by cities is lacking. This paper for the first time analyses the challenges of water, wastewater, municipal solid waste and climate change in cities. We used empirical studies (125 cities) based on the City Blueprint Approach and developed a statistical estimation model to estimate IWRM performances of another 75 cities. These 200 cities in total represent more than 95% of the global urban population. This comprehensive global picture enables us to evaluate the existing gaps in achieving water-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) and SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities). The best performing cities we...

Urban Water Governance and Management

International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), 2020

The relationship between governance structures for managing water in selected cities and the performance of water policy outcomes (access, quality, tariffs, reliability of service provision, equity, sustainability, etc.) and to explore governance mechanisms that can deal with fragmentation to improve urban water management, including those favouring inter-sectoral complementarities. This implies looking at coordination failures and best practices across water management functions drinking water supply. As such, the paper will focus more specifically on the contribution of governance, urban partnerships and stakeholder engagement as governance instruments that can help address fragmentation of water-related tasks, and foster cooperation to overcome mismatches across water management functions in a given city, between cities and their surroundings, and between water functions and other policy areas.

Water governance in an urban age

This paper addresses the challenges of constructing alternatives to the current water policy practices, regarding the social and cultural context of an increasing urbanized world. It aims at providing a reflective exercise based upon the analysis of a set of illustrative examples from different regions of the world. By presenting examples of critical problems or innovative approaches, several conclusions are drawn, which intend to clarify the most effective ways to influence water governance and urban policies at the local level. The cases presented are used to propose a referential and illustrative framework of possible ways to progress towards urban sustainability and 'good' water governance. The ultimate objective of this discussion is to promote and support the rethinking of 'traditional' planning conceptual models (top-down and regulatory oriented), and their inadequacy to face the real social challenges existing today in urban areas, through an appropriate governance framework. Considering the goal of policy integration in the ongoing processes of change, this article proposes a set of recommendations in relation to urban development and water governance. Finally, this discussion builds on existing concepts like 'sustainable urban water management' and 'integrated urban water management' to propose a new and more policy oriented conceptual framework: integrated urban water policy (IUWP).