Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2009) 8:115–120
DOI 10.1007/s11157-009-9154-2
SWITCH MONITOR
Managing water in the city of the future; strategic planning
and science
Peter van der Steen Æ Carol Howe
Published online: 24 April 2009
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
1 Introduction
Increasing global change pressures, escalating costs
and other risks inherent to conventional urban water
management are causing cities to face ever increasing
difficulties in efficiently managing scarcer and less
reliable water resources.
In order to meet these challenges SWITCH
(Sustainable Water Management Improves Tomorrow’s Cities Health) is facilitating a paradigm shift in
urban water management. SWITCH is an EU funded
action research program being implemented and cofunded by a cross-disciplinary team of 33 partners
from across the globe, including 17 from the EU and
12 from developing countries. The ‘‘consortium’’
comprises the academic and urban planning fields,
water utilities and consultants. This network of
researchers and practitioners are working directly
with stakeholders in ten cities (see Fig. 1). The
overall goal behind this global consortium is to
catalyse change towards more sustainable urban
water management in the ‘‘City of the Future’’.
Demonstrating research and sharing knowledge
across a range of different geographical, climatic
and socio-cultural settings is expected to lead to
P. van der Steen (&) C. Howe
UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, Department
of Environmental Resources, PO Box 3015, 2601 DA
Delft, The Netherlands
e-mail: p.vandersteen@unesco-ihe.org
URL: www.switchurbanwater.eu
global adoption and acceleration of more sustainable
solutions.
The SWITCH research process is a combination of:
•
•
•
Learning Alliances—SWITCH is linking up a
wide range of stakeholders at city level to interact
productively and to create win-win solutions
along the water chain. They consist of a series
of structured platforms, at different institutional
levels (national, river basin, city, community
etc.), designed to break down barriers to both
horizontal and vertical information sharing
thereby speeding up the process of identification,
adaptation, and uptake of new innovations. LA’s
have been established in Accra, Alexandria,
Beijing, Belo Horzionte, Birmingham, Cali,
Hamburg, Lima, Lodz, Tel Aviv and Zaragoza.
Action Research—SWITCH is carrying out more
demand-led, action-orientated research in cities
with a view to achieving greater integration and
wider impact through the Learning Alliances.
Multiple-way learning—SWITCH is promoting
multiple-way learning, where European cities
learn from each other and from developing
countries, and vice versa.
2 Strategic planning and scientific assessment
of strategies
One goal of SWITCH is to develop new strategic
plans for water management in the cities mentioned
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Birmingham, UK
Hamburg, Germany
Emscher* Lodz, Poland
Zaragosa, Spain
Beijing, China
Tel Aviv, Israel
Alexandria, Egypt
Chongqing, China
Accra, Ghana
*Cali*Bogota
* Lima
Belo Horizonte, Brazil
City
* Study Site
Fig. 1 SWITCH cities and study sites
above. These strategic plans are developed by the LA
(Learning Alliance) and are based on the inclusion of
scientific innovations, both in the technical as well as
in the socio-economic field. Scientific assessment
methodologies, such as Mass Flow Analysis, Water
Balance studies and Energy footprints, are used to
evaluate the new strategies.
New strategies for urban water management are
needed because in many cities, not only in the
developing world, the objectives of urban water
management are not fully met. Sustainable Urban
Water Management is to serve urban dwellers with
reliable water services, without compromising the
integrity of the environmental resources that are
sustaining these services. The institutions that are
delivering the services, or managing the urban water
system, base their actions on a certain ‘approach’.
This approach to managing the city or its water
system is usually found in mission statements or
strategic planning documents. Sometimes the
approach is not made explicit, but nevertheless
directs the actions of the organization. It is believed
by many researchers (and indeed one of the assumptions of the SWITCH project) that the underlying
approaches should be modified in order to result in
more effective and efficient management actions, and
ultimately in a sustainable urban water system. In
order to develop the new approach, case studies are
undertaken in the cities mentioned above. The case
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studies are designed to contribute to the testing of the
following hypothesis:
Design and management of the urban water
system based on an analysis and optimisation of
the entire urban water syste (infrastructure and
human organisations, water supply, sanitation,
stormwater etc.) will lead to more sustainable
solutions than optimisation of separate elements
of the system.
The hypothesis is tested based on the results from
research and demonstration activities in the various
cities. Not only on the basis of theoretical considerations, but also based on practice in the cities. If the
hypothesis is found to be true and of practical value,
than it is a strong encouragement to modify the
design, planning and management of the urban water
system. For example, one should then formulate
general sustainability objectives for the entire system,
rather than for an element (for instance the water
distribution network, or the wastewater treatment
plant). Equally, one would formulate indicators that
measure the state of the entire system, rather than
performance indicators that measure the functioning
of a subsystem, or performance indicators for an
organization that manages a subsystem. Monitoring
the value of general sustainability indicators for the
entire system will give an indication to policy and
decision makers whether the city is moving towards
Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2009) 8:115–120
or away from sustainability (economy, environment,
society). Based on the indicators score, the policies
and strategies are then adapted.
3 Systems engineering
One of the new approaches advocated in the water
sector (Mitchell 2004; UNESCO 2007) is ‘Integrated
Urban Water Management’ (IUWM). There is so far
no generally accepted definition of this term. It is
proposed here that IUWM can be interpreted as the
application of systems analyis and systems engineering to the urban water system. A system is defined as
‘a collection of various structural and non-structural
(e.g., human) elements which are interconnected and
organized in such a way as to achieve some specified
objective by the control and distribution of material
resources, energy and information’ (Smith et al.
1987). For the water system the objective is to create
or maintain a safe and clean environment and to
deliver water and sanitation services to the urban
population. Resources that are used to achieve this
objective are construction materials for the various
infrastructure components, as well as chemicals,
energy and water to run the system.
Systems engineering aims to design systems that
are more efficient and effective in reaching the
objective as a system, than the individual component
would be able to achieve if designed and operated in
isolation (Smith et al. 1987). The application of this
general statement to the urban water system is the
major hypothesis of SWITCH mentioned above. This
means that the water resource system (rivers, groundwater), the water treatment and distribution network,
the stormwater network, the wastewater collection
and treatment system, should be designed and
operated as one system. Practice in most cities in
the world show that this is not generally the case.
Analysis of the approach to urban water management
in the SWITCH demonstration cities shows that water
management is often carried out in a rather fragmented way. To overcome this institutional fragmentation is a matter of cooperation, political willingness,
joint design, information exchange, willingness to
share and learn, etc. Institutional boundaries are
related to the boundaries of the system that is under
analysis. Just like inter or intra-institutional cooperation is important, it is crucial that system boundaries
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are wide enough, not to externalize important effects,
either in space or time. Too narrow system boundaries will result in ‘harmful suboptimization’ (Hellström et al. 2000).
Systems engineering stresses that both structural
and human elements are part of the system. If systems
engineering is accepted as an approach in urban
planning, it follows naturally that definition of
objectives is always a contested and never an obvious
exercise. The human element, in its various organization forms, is an integral element of the system and
therefore each stakeholder has its own interest and
seeks to achieve different objectives with the urban
water system. Whereas shopkeepers in the city center
would put budgetary priority at flood prevention
measures, environmental groups would prioritize
investments towards water quality improvements.
And utility customers may primarily be concerned
with costs. There is therefore a natural link between
systems engineering and Triple Bottom Line assessment (Kenway et al. 2007). The objectives for which
the system is designed will always include social,
environmental and economic aspects.
Apart from professionals that are needed to design
and run the elements of the system, there is also a
need for urban water managers that are capable to
maintain a ‘helicopter view’ on the entire system. The
urban water manager is like a systems engineer who
requires sufficient knowledge on all elements, so that
he or she is able to coordinate detailed investigations.
Moreover, the urban water manager needs to evaluate
whether the Triple Bottom Line (TBL; economy,
society, environment) is sufficiently addressed in all
planning and decision making.
4 System design, strategy development
and strategic urban planning
SWITCH is aimed at the ‘city of the future’.
Therefore it includes a certain extent of re-design of
the urban area in order to achieve the sustainability
objectives. The emphasis is on developing strategies
for the system as a whole. Its focus is on the
development of an overall strategy and the translation
of this into ‘strategic planning’. A strategy has been
defined as ‘‘A framework guiding those choices that
determine the nature and direction to attain the
objective’’ (Saunier and Meganck 2004). Strategic
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planning is therefore the description of the major
choices and what these choices mean for the city.
And it is fed by data on the urban water system.
The SWITCH strategic planning methodology was
adapted from the EMPOWER project (Batchelor and
Butterworth 2008) and Foxon et al. (2002). The
different steps in this planning process are indicated
in Fig. 2. Key elements are:
call these objectives ‘sustainability objectives’, since
the overall aim is to reach a sustainable urban water
system. Once the objectives have been agreed by the
Learning Alliance, we could formulate one or more
sustainability indicator for each sustainability
objective.
4.1 Visioning and sustainability objectives
After the vision and the set of sustainability indicators has been agreed, the Learning Alliance’s will
formulate a number of possible future scenarios.
‘‘Scenarios are stories about the way the world might
turn out tomorrow. A scenario is a consistent
description of a possible future situation as determined by those factors that are both most important
and most uncertain’’ (Batchelor and Butterworth
2008).
A vision is ‘‘a concise description of a desired future.
Visions provide a picture of how we would like the
world (or our water resources and services) to be at
some agreed future time’’ (Batchelor and Butterworth
2008). The next step in the process is that the vision
is translated in a set of SMART objectives. We may
LA Workshop to agree on a Vision for a Sustainable
Urban Water System in 2030
Define sustainability objectives
Define a set of sustainability indicators
Generate scenarios and strategies (including the businessas-usual-strategy)
Refine strategies into options for a number of strategies
Collect data on the options
All necessary data
available for
straightforward
extrapolation to
2030
Not all necessary data available;
carry out options analysis for
the future situation using urban
water system models
Match data with indicators for each strategy
Analyse strategies using a Decision Support System
Present sustainability scores for the strategies to the LA
and decision makers
Implementation of strategies
Monitoring, Evaluation and Feedback
Fig. 2 The role of sustainability indicators in strategic
planning of the urban water system. (Adapted from Foxon
et al. 2002)
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4.2 Scenario development
4.3 Strategy development
Subsequently, the Learning Alliance will work out
different strategies that are aimed to reach the vision
under the conditions of a certain scenario. The
scenarios and strategies that are being developed in
workshops in the cities are at first instance to a large
extent qualitative, without a data-based and in depth
analysis. This in-depth analysis, using research and
demonstration results of the SWITCH project, are
added during the next stage. Finally, a City Strategy,
based on solid data and in depth analysis will be
agreed and adopted during a final workshop on the
‘‘City Strategy for 2030’’. Although the strategy
development is presented here as a linear process, in
reality its nature is much more cyclic. After every
step in the process the planners need to check
previous steps. Is the vision still the same and still
achievable? Have scenarios changed, for instance due
to the availability of new data? Have new strategies
emerged, for instance due to the development of new
technologies?
5 Sustainability indicators (SIs)
Sustainability indicators can be used by cities to
monitor the cities progress towards sustainability.
Indicators are pieces of information, which summarize important properties, visualize phenomena
Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2009) 8:115–120
of interest, quantify trends and communicate them
to relevant target groups (Lundin and Morisson
2002). They are useful tools in decision making
when they (a) provide information for spatial
comparison, (b) provide early warning information
and (c) anticipate future conditions and trends. A
city that is going through a process of re-designing
or developing its urban water system for the future,
obviously would like to know where it is going. Is
it getting nearer to sustainability or not? However,
one has to recognize that sustainability cannot be
measured in absolute terms, such as the pH of a
water sample. Sustainability is in fact defined by
the stakeholders, that give different weights to
different TBL aspects.
In a strategic planning process, SIs can be used to
measure to what extent the sustainability objectives
have been achieved. Since the idea is that the
sustainability objectives are developed jointly with
all stakeholders, one may assume that the set of
sustainability indicators are also agreed by the
stakeholders. The coordinating institution for urban
water management is supposed to coordinate a
process by which the data to score the indicators is
collected. The result for the different indicators is
then used (typically) once per year or once per
2 years. The score of the indicators is used to
evaluate whether the cities strategies, policies and
projects are effective in reaching the objectives. If it
is noticed that the city is moving away for some
indicators from sustainability, the strategies need to
be adjusted (Fig. 3).
Vision
Scenarios
Initial
Assessment
Strategies
Operational plans for
governmental water
sector institutions
Enabling environment for private
initiative
Annual objectives and
targets
Departmental detailed
work plans
Private actions
Monitoring and evaluation
of performance
Assessment of state of the urban water system
Fig. 3 Implementation phase of the strategic planning process
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Some indicators are simple to measure, such as the
drinking water quality. Other indicators are aggregate
indicators and need certain assessment tools to be
scored. Such assessment tools include cost-benefit
analysis, functional risk analysis, microbial risk
analysis, life-cycle assessment, sensitivity analysis,
material flow analysis, behaviour/attitude investigations based on interviews and action research (Hellström et al. 2000), various financial assessments,
embodied energy assessment, ecological footprint
and multi criteria assessment (see Kenway et al. 2007
for overview).
6 Evaluation of integrated assessment methods
Case studies have shown that extensive data sets are
required for a proper integrated assessment of the
urban water system and that in none of the cities all
required data is readily available. Therefore assumptions had to be made that introduced large uncertainties in some of the analysis. Cities need to invest
more in collection, archiving and making this kind of
datasets accessible. The lack of data and the dispersion of data over many institutions is not only the
case in developing countries but also in Europe. In
fact this is not surprising, since this type of integrated
assessment is cross-cutting, and cuts through traditional system and institutional boundaries. The lack
of data and the need for assumptions introduced
uncertainty. On-going work on risk assessment and
decision making will give more insight whether this
uncertainty will or will not prevent this approach to
be used for strategic decision making.
The integrated assessment methods (especially
the Life Cycle Analysis and Quantitative Microbial
Risk Assessment) require specialist knowledge to
be fully understood. The complexity of systems
analyis and the assessment methods, makes them
not directly suitable to be used in strategic planning. It is suggested that these methods are used to
score indicators, that decision makers and urban
planners feel comfortable with. The link between
these methods and the indicators strengthen the
scientific basis under the use of indicators. In that
sense this suggestion is an improvement to the
current situation, in some cities, where indicators
are selected rather haphazard and without scientific
basis.
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7 Conclusions
References
The studies on the application of systems analyis,
systems engineering, Life Cycle Analysis and
Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment in
SWITCH demonstration cities show that an integrated analysis and design of the urban water system
is possible. The tools for analysis are available and
within a relatively short period, a general picture of
the urban water system can be created and the effect
of different strategies can be evaluated. However,
two major challenges remain. Firstly, to overcome
the lack of sufficient data (availability and accessibility) to do more detailed integrated assessments.
Secondly, the results of the assessments can only be
used for decision making and strategic planning
after the results have been translated into a limited
number of relatively simple indicators. Further
research will focuss on the translation of the results
from integrated assessment methods into sustainability indicators that are feasible for use in strategic
planning.
In the next SWITCH Monitors in this journal
experiences with the use of scientific information in
strategic urban planning of the water system will be
presented.
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