Tapped out: how can cities secure their water future?

Richter, Brian; Abell, David A.; Bacha, Emily; Brauman, Kate A.; Calos, Stavros; Cohn, Alex; Disla, Carlos; O’Brien, Sarah; Hodges, David; Kaiser, Scott; Loughran, Maria; Mestre, Cristina; Reardon, Melissa A.; Siegfried, Emma

doi:10.2166/wp.2013.105

Cited by 107 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In fact, half of all cities with populations greater than 100,000 are located in water-scarce basins. In these basins, agricultural water consumption accounts for more than 90 % of all freshwater depletions (Hunger and Döll 2008;Richter et al 2013). In a critical analysis, Richter et al (2013) point out that nearly all water used for domestic and industrial purposes is eventually returned to a water body.…”

Section: Water Challenges In the Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In these basins, agricultural water consumption accounts for more than 90 % of all freshwater depletions (Hunger and Döll 2008;Richter et al 2013). In a critical analysis, Richter et al (2013) point out that nearly all water used for domestic and industrial purposes is eventually returned to a water body. For instance, toilets are flushed and purified wastewater as well as cooling water in power plants is often returned to rivers.…”

Section: Water Challenges In the Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…water is not consumed, efforts to reduce urban water use or to recycle water with the aim to alleviate water scarcity per se, hardly makes any difference. In total, the domestic, industrial and energy sectors account for less than 10 % of global water consumption (Richter et al 2013;Hoekstra et al 2012). Of course, proper urban use and reuse of water, as well as adequate sanitation, contribute significantly to pollution reduction, local water availability, as well as to energy efficiency, energy and nutrient recovery.…”

Section: Urbanizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The challenges of water, waste and climate change in cities

Koop

Leeuwen

2016

Environ Dev Sustain

329

157

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Cities play a prominent role in our economic development as more than 80 % of the gross world product (GWP) comes from cities. Only 600 urban areas with just 20 % of the world population generate 60 % of the GWP. Rapid urbanization, climate change, inadequate maintenance of water and wastewater infrastructures and poor solid waste management may lead to flooding, water scarcity, water pollution, adverse health effects and rehabilitation costs that may overwhelm the resilience of cities. These megatrends pose urgent challenges in cities as the cost of inaction is high. We present an overview about population growth, urbanization, water, waste, climate change, water governance and transitions. Against this background, we discuss the categorization of cities based on our baseline assessments, i.e. our City Blueprint research on 45 municipalities and regions predominantly in Europe. With this bias towards Europe in mind, the challenges can be discussed globally by clustering cities into distinct categories of sustainability and by providing additional data and information from global regions. We distinguish five categories of sustainability: (1) cities lacking basic water services, (2) wasteful cities, (3) water-efficient cities, (4) resource-efficient and adaptive cities and (5) water-wise cities. Many cities in Western Europe belong to categories 3 and 4. Some cities in Eastern Europe and the few cities we have assessed in Latin America, Asia and Africa can be categorized as cities lacking basic water services. Lack of water infrastructures or obsolete infrastructures, solid waste management and climate adaptation are priorities. It is concluded that cities require a long-term framing of their sectoral challenges into a proactive and coherent Urban Agenda to maximize the co-benefits of adaptation and to minimize the cost. Furthermore, regional platforms of cities are needed to enhance city-to-city learning and to improve governance capacities necessary to accelerate effective and efficient transitions towards water-wise cities. These learning alliances are needed as the time window to solve the global water governance crisis is narrow and rapidly closing. The water sector can play an important role but needs to reframe and refocus radically.

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Section: Water Challenges In the Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Water Challenges In the Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Urbanizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The challenges of water, waste and climate change in cities

Koop

Leeuwen

2016

Environ Dev Sustain

329

157

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Such a transition would reconceive water infrastructure in terms of the water-related services provided rather than the quantity of water delivered [Fuenfschilling and Truffer, 2013;Wolff and Gleick, 2002]. Previous research on water-stressed cities has found that after exhausting local sources of ground and surface water, cities generally turn to water importation (usually from more distant surface water sources via aqueducts) and then to groundwater storage, desalinization (if the city is near a saltwater source or has access to brackish groundwater), and water conservation [Richter et al, 2013]. Thus, water conservation is often part of a general transition of water regimes in response to water stress, but it is of particular interest because it is a low-cost option that has diverse environmental benefits, including energy conservation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water conservation and hydrological transitions in cities in the United States

Hornberger

Hess

Gilligan

2015

Water Resources Research

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Cities across the world have had to diversify and expand their water supply systems in response to demand growth, groundwater depletion and pollution, and instability and inadequacy of regional surface freshwater sources. In the U.S., these problems plague not only the arid Western cities but increasingly also cities in the Eastern portions of the country. Although cities continue to seek out new sources of water via Promethean projects of long-distance supply systems, desalinization plants, and the recharge of aquifers with surface water, they also pursue water conservation because of its low cost and other benefits. We examine water conservation as a complex sociotechnical system comprising interactions of political, sociodemographic, economic, and hydroclimatological factors. We provide quantitative data on the factors that affect more and less advanced transitions in water conservation regimes, and we show that water stress and other hydrological data can only partially predict the transition. We also provide qualitative case studies to identify institutional and political barriers to more advanced water conservation regimes. This interdisciplinary, mixed methods approach typifies the need for knowledge that informs hydrologists about how their research may or may not be adopted by decision-makers.

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“…The strategies California has used historically to address these challenges are reflected in the Richter et al study [4]. Surface water and groundwater are fully, if not over, allocated (Strategy #1).…”

Section: California's Diversifying Water Supply MIXmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the electricity intensity of evolving water supply mixes: the case of California’s water network

Stokes-Draut

Taptich

Kavvada

et al. 2017

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Climate change is making water supply less predictable, even unreliable, in parts of the world. Urban water providers, especially in already arid areas, will need to diversify their water resources by switching to alternative sources and negotiating trading agreements to create more resilient and interdependent networks. The increasing complexity of these networks will likely require more operational electricity. The ability to document, visualize, and analyze water-energy relationships will be critical to future water planning, especially as data needed to conduct the analyses become increasingly available. We have developed a network model and decision-support tool, WESTNet, to perform these tasks. Herein, WESTNet was used to analyze a model of California's 2010 urban water network as well as the projected system for 2020 and 2030. Results for California's ten hydrologic regions show that the average number of water sources per utility and total electricity consumption for supplying water will increase in spite of decreasing per-capita water consumption. Electricity intensity (kWh m −3 ) will increase in arid regions of the state due to shifts to alternative water sources such as indirect potable water reuse, desalination, and water transfers. In wetter, typically less populated, regions, reduced water demand for electricity-intensive supplies will decrease the electricity intensity of the water supply mix, though total electricity consumption will increase due to urban population growth. The results of this study provide a baseline for comparing current and potential innovations to California's water system. The WESTNet tool can be applied to diverse water systems in any geographic region at a variety of scales to evaluate an array of network-dependent water-energy parameters.

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Tapped out: how can cities secure their water future?

Cited by 107 publications

References 32 publications

The challenges of water, waste and climate change in cities

The challenges of water, waste and climate change in cities

Water conservation and hydrological transitions in cities in the United States

Evaluating the electricity intensity of evolving water supply mixes: the case of California’s water network

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