water research 47 (2013) 7149
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/watres
Editorial
Urban water management to increase sustainability of cities
Present day solutions for water management in urban areas are a heritage of traditional engineering approaches. This resulted in a network based and predominately centralized system for water supply, drainage and treatment. Over the last years a shift into decentralized solutions has been experienced and current research is investigating both socioeconomic and technical perspectives related with such transition. External influences such as urbanization, demographic changes, socioeconomic pressures and climate change are key drivers in the quest to find alternative approaches to water management in order to increase the sustainability of cities. The underlying idea is to find solutions that meet the demand of the society with regard to water management whilst generating additional benefit to the urban environment. This special issue covers the most recent findings with regard to urban water management in the context of increasing sustainability and livability in cities. The 13 articles compiled in this issue give the reader an overview of the state of the art by presenting the most recent findings of high quality research. The first part of this issue presents conceptual investigations in relation to urban water management. The papers reassess sustainability and transformation of water infrastructure (Beale et al.), design and decision support of such systems (Chardin et al. and Starkl et al.) and modeling aspects. With respect to the last issue both the financial sustainability (Knight et al.) and the context of urban land use (Willuweit et al.) is discussed. Finally Kumar et al. present the use of a Bayesian Network model for Sustainability Appraisal. The second part of the issue deals with a wider spectrum of topics. At a city scale papers are covering systems dynamics (Mavrommati et al.), impact of transitioning to existing water infrastructure (Sitzenfrei et al.) and contamination of urban lakes (Xiao et al.). At the scale of buildings Jiang et al. evaluate health risk from rainwater harvesting and Agudelo-Vera et al. residential water balance. And finally
the issue comprises three case studies. Ferguson et al. analyze the institutional context for transitioning urban water management in Melbourne followed by an account for QMRA based regulation (Bichai et al.) and last a case study on pollution abatement in macro-pervious pavement (AntizarLadislao). The editors hope that by reading these papers major challenges will be visualized to the readers but also that there are promising solutions available to these challenges. We appreciate the valuable support of our colleagues who have devoted their time to review the manuscripts and thus ensure the quality of this issue. We also express sincere thanks to the staff of Water Research for their valuable editorial support.
Wolfgang Rauch* Institute of Infrastructure Engineering, University Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 13, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria Eberhard Morgenroth ETH Zu¨rich, Institute of Environmental Engineering, 8093 Zu¨rich, Switzerland Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, 8600 Du¨bendorf, Switzerland E-mail address: [email protected] *Corresponding author. Tel.: þ43 512 507 6921; fax: þ43 512 507 2911. E-mail address: [email protected] 21 October 2013 Available online 31 October 2013 0043-1354/$ e see front matter ª 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2013.10.042
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/watres
Editorial
Urban water management to increase sustainability of cities
Present day solutions for water management in urban areas are a heritage of traditional engineering approaches. This resulted in a network based and predominately centralized system for water supply, drainage and treatment. Over the last years a shift into decentralized solutions has been experienced and current research is investigating both socioeconomic and technical perspectives related with such transition. External influences such as urbanization, demographic changes, socioeconomic pressures and climate change are key drivers in the quest to find alternative approaches to water management in order to increase the sustainability of cities. The underlying idea is to find solutions that meet the demand of the society with regard to water management whilst generating additional benefit to the urban environment. This special issue covers the most recent findings with regard to urban water management in the context of increasing sustainability and livability in cities. The 13 articles compiled in this issue give the reader an overview of the state of the art by presenting the most recent findings of high quality research. The first part of this issue presents conceptual investigations in relation to urban water management. The papers reassess sustainability and transformation of water infrastructure (Beale et al.), design and decision support of such systems (Chardin et al. and Starkl et al.) and modeling aspects. With respect to the last issue both the financial sustainability (Knight et al.) and the context of urban land use (Willuweit et al.) is discussed. Finally Kumar et al. present the use of a Bayesian Network model for Sustainability Appraisal. The second part of the issue deals with a wider spectrum of topics. At a city scale papers are covering systems dynamics (Mavrommati et al.), impact of transitioning to existing water infrastructure (Sitzenfrei et al.) and contamination of urban lakes (Xiao et al.). At the scale of buildings Jiang et al. evaluate health risk from rainwater harvesting and Agudelo-Vera et al. residential water balance. And finally
the issue comprises three case studies. Ferguson et al. analyze the institutional context for transitioning urban water management in Melbourne followed by an account for QMRA based regulation (Bichai et al.) and last a case study on pollution abatement in macro-pervious pavement (AntizarLadislao). The editors hope that by reading these papers major challenges will be visualized to the readers but also that there are promising solutions available to these challenges. We appreciate the valuable support of our colleagues who have devoted their time to review the manuscripts and thus ensure the quality of this issue. We also express sincere thanks to the staff of Water Research for their valuable editorial support.
Wolfgang Rauch* Institute of Infrastructure Engineering, University Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 13, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria Eberhard Morgenroth ETH Zu¨rich, Institute of Environmental Engineering, 8093 Zu¨rich, Switzerland Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, 8600 Du¨bendorf, Switzerland E-mail address: [email protected] *Corresponding author. Tel.: þ43 512 507 6921; fax: þ43 512 507 2911. E-mail address: [email protected] 21 October 2013 Available online 31 October 2013 0043-1354/$ e see front matter ª 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2013.10.042
