1. Urban Water Security: Background and Concepts

Water is of vital and critical importance to ecosystems and human societies. Issues like urbanization, population growth, socioeconomic change, evolving energy needs and climate change have put unprecedented pressure on utilization of freshwater resources. It is argued that achieving water security is the key to sustainable development. The focal point of water security evolves from ensuring reliable access of enough safe water for every person at an affordable price to lead a healthy and productive life along with maintaining the water-related ecosystem services for future generations. Although total water demand at global scale is well within available water resources, the shortages prevail at spatial and temporal scales. The constraints on water availability and water quality threaten secure access to water resources for different uses. Despite recent progress in developing new strategies, practices and technologies for water resource management, their dissemination and implementation have been limited. The chapter focuses on urban water security and their connections with practical issues dealing with real-world situations. This chapter sets the stage to understand the evolution of urban water security, its challenges and ways to achieve sustainable water management. A comprehensive sustainable approach to address water security challenges requires connecting social, economic and environmental systems at multiple scales. This chapter strives to capture the persistently changing dimensions and new paradigms of water security providing a holistic view including wide range of sustainable solutions to address the water challenges.