Introduction
Methodology
Selection of Cities in the U.S.
City | NYC | Boston | Milwaukee | Portland | Phoenix | Los Angeles |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Populationa
| 8,550,405 | 667,137 | 600,155 | 632,309 | 1,563,025 | 3,971,883 |
Daily Average Temperature (C°)b
| 12.5 | 10.8 | 8.8 | 12.5 | 23.9 | 18.6 |
Annual Average Rainfall (mm)b
| 1086 | 1112 | 883 | 914 | 204 | 379 |
Green Space (parks) (%)c
| 21.1 | 17 | 8.7 | 17.8 | 15 | 13.6 |
Groundwater Depletion 1900–2008 (Km3)d
| 0–3 | N.A. | 10–25 | −10–0 | 50–150 | 3–10 |
Saltwater Intrusione
| Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
Water Consumption (m3/person/y)f
| 173.815 | 81.51 | 128.5 | 132.5 | 255.2 | 156.22 |
Average Age of Sewer (y)f
| 84 | 100 | 45 | 80 | 50 | 50 |
Municipal Solid Waste Collected (Kg/cap/y)f
| 1637 | 1428 | 626 | 1550 | 535 | 842 |
The City Blueprint Approach
Trends and pressures framework (TPF)
Trends and Pressures Framework (TPF) | ||
Goal | Baseline assessment of social, environmental and financial pressures | |
Framework | Social pressures | 1. Urbanization rate |
2. Burden of disease | ||
3. Education rate | ||
4. Political instability | ||
Environmental pressures | 5. Flooding | |
6. Water scarcity | ||
7. Water quality | ||
8. Heat risk | ||
Financial pressures | 9. Economic pressure | |
10. Unemployment rate | ||
11. Poverty rate | ||
12. Inflation rate | ||
Data | Public data or data provided by the water and wastewater utilities | |
Scores | 0: no concern, 1: little concern, 2: medium concern, 3: concern and, 4: great concern | |
Overall score | Trends and Pressures Index (TPI), the arithmetic mean of 12 indicators. Indicators scoring a concern or great concern (3 or 4 points) are communicated as a priority | |
City Blueprint performance Framework (CBF) | ||
Goal | Baseline performance assessment of the state of IWRM | |
Framework | Twenty-five indicators divided over seven broad categories: | |
1. Water quality | ||
2. Solid waste | ||
3. Basic water services | ||
4. Wastewater treatment | ||
5. Infrastructure | ||
6. Climate robustness | ||
7. Governance | ||
Data | Public data or data provided by the (water and wastewater utilities and cities based on a questionnaire (EIP Water 2017a) | |
Scores | 0 (low performance) to 10 (high performance) | |
Overall score | Blue City Index® (BCI), the geometric mean of 25 indicators |
City blueprint framework (CBF)
BCI | Categories of IWRM in cities |
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0–2 | Cities lacking basic water services. |
Access to potable drinking water of sufficient quality and access to sanitation facilities are insufficient. Typically, water pollution is high due to a lack of wastewater treatment (WWT). Solid waste production is relatively low but is only partially collected and, if collected, almost exclusively put in landfills. Water consumption is low, but water system leakages are high due to serious infrastructure investment deficits. Basic water services cannot be expanded or improved due to rapid urbanization. Improvements are hindered due to insufficient governance capacity and funding gaps | |
2–4 | Wasteful cities. |
Basic water services are largely met but flood risk can be high and WWT is insufficiently covered. Often, only primary and a small portion of secondary WWT is applied, leading to large-scale pollution. Water consumption and infrastructure leakages are high due to the a lack of environmental awareness and infrastructure maintenance. Solid waste production is high, and waste is almost completely dumped in landfills. In many cases, community involvement is relatively low | |
4–6 | Water efficient cities |
Cities are implementing centralized, well-known, technological solutions to increase water efficiency and to control pollution. Secondary WWT coverage is high, and tertiary WWT is rising. Water-efficient technologies are partially applied, infrastructure leakages are substantially reduced but water consumption is still high. Energy recovery from WWT is relatively high, while nutrient recovery is limited. Both solid waste recycling and energy recovery are partially applied. These cities are often vulnerable to climate change, e.g., urban heat islands and drainage flooding, due to poor adaptation strategies, limited storm water separation and low green surface ratios. Governance community involvement has improved | |
6–8 | Resource efficient and adaptive cities |
WWT techniques to recover energy and nutrients are often applied. Solid waste recycling and energy recovery are largely covered, whereas solid waste production has not yet been reduced. Water-efficient techniques are widely applied, and water consumption has been reduced. Climate adaptation in urban planning is applied, e.g., incorporation of green infrastructures and storm water separation. Integrative, (de)centralized and decentralized as well as long-term planning, community involvement, and sustainability initiatives are established to cope with limited resources and climate change | |
8–10 | Water wise cities |
There is no BCI score that is within this category so far. These cities apply full resource and energy recovery in their WWT and solid waste treatment, fully integrate water into urban planning, have multi-functional and adaptive infrastructures, and local communities promote sustainable integrated decision-making and behavior. Cities are largely water self-sufficient, attractive, innovative and circular by applying multiple centralized and decentralized solutions |
Governance capacity framework (GCF)
Data Gathering
Other Municipalities and Regions
Results
Trends and Pressures
City Blueprints
The Water Governance Capacity of New York City
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3.2 Evaluation: Current policy and implementation are in many cases insufficiently assessed and improved throughout the decision-making and implementation process. Moreover, there is room to improve the quality of existing evaluation methods, the frequency of their application, and the level of learning (EIP water 2017c).
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3.3 Cross-stakeholder learning: Stakeholders have only limited opportunity to interact with other stakeholders and the engagement is relatively superficial decreasing opportunities to learn from each other (EIP water 2017c).
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4.2 Protection of core values: There are risks that engaged stakeholders do not feel confident that their core values (e.g., flood safety of their property) are being protected in the stakeholder engagement process. Sometimes commitment to early end-results are being demanded, opportunities for active involvement or knowledge coproduction are low, and exit procedures are clear and transparent (Ridder et al. 2005). These components all may limit a stakeholder engagement process that ensures protection of core values of all engaged stakeholders (EIP water 2017c).
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6.2 Collaborative agents: In order to drive change, agents of change are required to show direction, motivate others to follow and mobilize the resources required (EIP water 2017c).
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7.1 Room to maneuver: The freedom and opportunity to develop a variety of alternatives, approaches, and to form new partnerships that can adequately address existing or emerging issues can be improved considerably (EIP water 2017c).
Dimension | Conditions | Indicators | Water scarcity | Flood risk | Waste water treatment | Solid waste treatment | Urban heat islands |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Knowing | 1. Awareness | 1.1 Community knowledge | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1.2 Local sense of urgency | − | 0 | 0 | + | 0 | ||
1.3 Behavioral internalization | + | + | 0 | + | 0 | ||
2. Useful knowledge | 2.1 Information availability | 0 | 0 | + | 0 | 0 | |
2.2 Information transparency | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | + | ||
2.3 Knowledge cohesion | + | + | 0 | 0 | + | ||
3. Continuous learning | 3.1 Smart monitoring | ++ | 0 | + | 0 | −− | |
3.2 Evaluation | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | −− | ||
3.3 Cross-stakeholder learning | − | 0 | + | 0 | − | ||
Wanting | 4. Stakeholder engagement process | 4.1 Stakeholder inclusiveness | 0 | + | + | 0 | − |
4.2 Protection of core values | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | − | ||
4.3 Progress and variety of options | 0 | + | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
5. Management ambition | 5.1 Ambitious realistic management | ++ | + | 0 | + | + | |
5.2 Discourse embedding | 0 | + | + | 0 | + | ||
5.3 Management cohesion | + | + | 0 | + | + | ||
6. Agents of change | 6.1 Entrepreneurial agents | 0 | + | + | + | + | |
6.2 Collaborative agents | − | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
6.3 Visionary agents | 0 | ++ | 0 | ++ | 0 | ||
Enabling | 7. Multi-level network potential | 7.1 Room to maneuver | 0 | + | 0 | − | − |
7.2 Clear division of responsibilities | 0 | + | + | 0 | 0 | ||
7.3 Authority | ++ | + | ++ | + | + | ||
8. Financial viability | 8.1 Affordability | + | + | + | + | + | |
8.2 Consumer willingness to pay | 0 | + | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
8.3 Financial continuation | + | + | + | + | 0 | ||
9. Implementing capacity | 9.1 Policy instruments | 0 | + | 0 | 0 | + | |
9.2 Statutory compliance | 0 | + | 0 | + | + | ||
9.3 Preparedness | + | + | 0 | + | 0 |
Discussion
Comparison With Top Performing Cities
The Challenge of Resilient Water Infrastructures
Flooding
Water Scarcity
Urban Water Challenges are Water Governance Challenges
Implications and Future Directions
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1. Based on the trends and pressures analyses, heat risk is a major concern or concern for five out of the six U.S. cities in this study and can be better addressed through the creation of specific plans to tackle urban heat island effects, which include monitoring and evaluation in order to determine the most effective city-specific measures. Saltwater intrusion is a concern for New York City, Boston and Los Angeles and urban drainage flooding are great concerns both for New York City and Boston.
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2. Based on the City Blueprint analyses, long-term strategic planning and increased capital investments are needed to improve tertiary wastewater treatment, solid waste recycling, nutrient recovery from wastewater treatment, storm water separation, and infrastructure maintenance and improvement in U.S. cities (Figs. 2 and 3).
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3. The current political emphasis on improving U.S. infrastructure should not be limited to aboveground infrastructure. Water infrastructure (drinking water networks, sewers and sewage treatment plants) and green space in cities are major challenges in the U.S. (Fig. 4). In fact, multi-functional land use and multi-functional infrastructure should be explored further.
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4. Urban land use planning, supported by well-planned and well-managed initiatives and investments, can help address these challenges. One of these components is the need to increase green space to enhance the resiliency of cities to more frequent and intense flooding and heat waves in addition to its overall benefits on human wellbeing and the economy (Fig. 4).
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5. Based on the governance capacity analysis of NYC, monitoring and evaluation of projects and improved cross-stakeholder learning through e.g., workshops, which engage different levels of management is proposed to increase continuous learning and make water governance more effective (Fig. 5).