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This paper is based on the proposition that the transition to sustainable urban water management has been hampered by the lack of insight into attributes of a sustainable urban water regime. Significant progress has been made in developing technical solutions to advance urban water practice, however it is the co-evolution of the socio-institutional and technical systems that enable a system-wide transition. A systematic analysis of 81 empirical studies across a range of practice areas was undertaken to construct a schema of the sustainable urban water regime attributes. Attributes were identified and analyzed using a framework of nested management regime spheres: the administrative and regulatory system, inter-organizational, intra-organizational, and human resources spheres. The regime is likely to involve significant stakeholder involvement, collaborative inter-organizational relationships, flexible and adaptive organizational cultures, and motivated and engaging employees. Comparison of the constructed sustainable and traditional regime attributes reveals that to realize sustainable urban water management in practice a substantial shift in governance is required. This difference emphasizes the critical need for explicitly supported strategies targeted at developing each management regime sphere to further enable change toward sustainable urban water management.(KEY TERMS: sustainability; water policy; urban areas; management regime; sustainable urban water management; literature review.) van de Meene, Susan J. and Rebekah R. Brown, 2009. Delving into the ''Institutional Black Box'': Revealing the Attributes of Sustainable Urban Water Management Regimes.

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.