Enabling sustainable urban water management through governance experimentation.

A shift towards sustainable urban water management is widely advocated but poorly understood. There is a growing body of literature claiming that social learning is of high importance in restructuring conventional systems. In particular, governance experimentation, which explicitly aims for social learning, has been suggested as an approach for enabling the translation of sustainability ideas into practice. This type of experimentation requires a very different dynamic within societal relations and necessitates a changed role for professionals engaged in such a process. This empirically focused paper investigates a contemporary governance experiment, the Cooks River Sustainability Initiative, and determines its outcome in terms of enabling social learning for attaining sustainable water practice in an urban catchment. Drawing on the qualitative insights of the actors directly involved in this novel process, this paper provides evidence of changes in individual and collective understanding generated through diverse forms of social interaction. Furthermore, the research reveals perceived key-factors that foster and/or hamper the execution of this new form of experimentation, including project complexity, resource intensity and leadership. Overall, this paper highlights that, while implementation of governance experimentation in a conventional setting can be highly challenging, it can also be highly rewarding in terms of learning.

Capacity attributes of future urban water management regimes: projections from Australian sustainability practitioners.

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.

Exploring sustainable urban water governance: a case study of institutional capacity.

The sustainable urban water management system is likely to be characterised by complex and flexible governance arrangements, increased inter-organisational interaction and wide stakeholder participation, which contrasts significantly with the traditional approach. Recently there has been significant financial investment in urban water reform, however the reforms have not been as successful as anticipated and numerous institutional barriers remain. Understanding and assessing institutional capacity is central to addressing institutional impediments. Institutional capacity comprises individual, intra- and inter-organisational and external rules and incentives capacities. This paper reports on the first case study of a social research project that aims to develop an institutional capacity assessment framework. Empirical data from semi-structured interviews with 59 water industry experts in Sydney, Australia, and a broad literature survey were used. The key capacity attributes identified could form the basis of an institutional capacity assessment tool and reveal common and differing attributes across stakeholder groups which provide insight into stakeholder relations. Synthesis of the results revealed that intra- and inter-organisational capacities were facing particular challenges and should be explicitly addressed in reform, policy and capacity development initiatives.

Delivering sustainable urban water management: a review of the hurdles we face.

Sustainable urban water management (SUWM) requires an integrated, adaptive, coordinated and participatory approach. Current urban water policies are beginning to reflect this understanding yet the rhetoric is often not translated to implementation. Despite the 'new' philosophy, urban water management remains a complex and fragmented area relying on traditional, technical, linear management approaches. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the barriers to change, there has been little systematic review of what constitutes the scope of such barriers and how these should be addressed to advance SUWM. To better understand why implementation fails to occur beyond ad hoc project interventions, an extensive literature review of observed and studied barriers was conducted. Drawing on local, national and international literature from the field of integrated urban water management and other similar fields, 53 studies were assessed, resulting in a typology of 12 barrier types. The analysis revealed the barriers are largely socio-institutional rather than technical, reflecting issues related to community, resources, responsibility, knowledge, vision, commitment and coordination. Furthermore, the meta-analysis demonstrated a paucity of targeted strategies for overcoming the stated institutional barriers. Evaluation of the typology in relation to capacity building suggests that these systemic issues require a sophisticated programme of change that focuses on fostering social capital, inter-sectoral professional development, and inter-organisational coordination.

Challenges ahead: social and institutional factors influencing sustainable urban stormwater management in Australia.

In a time of climate uncertainty and drought in Australia, improved urban stormwater quality management practices are required not only for protecting waterway health, but also as a fit-for-purpose supply source. To conceive of urban stormwater as an environmental threat as well as a water supply source requires a substantial shift in our traditional linear supply and wastewater structures towards more hybrid and complex infrastructure systems. To understand what drives and limits treatment technology adoption for stormwater management, over 800 urban water professionals in three Australian capital cities completed an online questionnaire survey in November 2006. Using the conceptual framework of receptivity assessment, the results revealed the professional community to be highly associated with the importance of improving stormwater quality for receiving waterway health, yet they do not consider that politicians share this perspective by placing a substantially lower level of importance on stormwater quality management. Significant acquisition barriers within each city, including institutional arrangements, costs, responsibilities, and regulations and approvals processes were all identified as constraining more sustainable practices. Capacity building programs, fostering greater socio-political capital and developing key demonstration projects with training events are recommended as useful policy interventions for addressing current institutional impediments.