Water is subject to uncertainty of supply (quantity) and quality, which affects decisions determining allocation, use and management for human and environmental functions. Tensions concerning water and its allocation reflect conflicting ideologies influencing development. Focusing on water governance enables the allocation and management of environmental resources and tensions in development to be explored. ¶ This research has as its central argument the notion that water governance is conceptualised differently at different scales and as discourses become localised, hybrid forms emerge. Place-specific hybrid governance systems which are cognisant of transformations in the local political economy and environmental characteristics can be useful in managing risks and uncertainty about water supply. This is particularly so where local knowledge about formal institutions regulating water governance and environmental conditions is low. This is because hybrid systems are more likely to be responsive to local needs than national or supra-national discourse allows. However, there are limitations with hybrid systems, particularly in terms of allocating responsibility and risk, which require effective coordination. ¶ The aim of this research is to uncover local perspectives and knowledge about water governance and hybridity in urban environments which can be used to shape and influence urban water management. I explore the hybridisation of water governance by considering the problem of ensuring urban water supply in a developing country context. The research was undertaken as an inductive, qualitative inquiry comprising a case study in Tagbilaran City, Bohol, the Philippines. Tagbilaran is a small sized city with a population of approximately 87,000 people. The city is experiencing relatively rapid population growth along with urban development and expansion in which water demand already outstrips water supply. Ethnographic, interpretive techniques were used to distil local perspectives about water governance which are juxtaposed with official policy and discourse. Research methods included participant observation, semi-structured interviews with government employees, government officials and key informants from other organisations. Other methods included structured household surveys and the use of documentary sources. ¶ This research reveals how formal approaches to urban water governance systems have been shaped by international development thinking and discourse. Current strategies to manage water emphasise an integrated approach which encompasses environmental, social and economic domains. At the same time neoliberal discourse exerts a powerful influence over how urban water is conceptualised and managed, and who should be responsible for its provision. The case study allows for the exploration of the ways in which development and water governance discourse have been articulated and the consideration of the local factors which have enabled the emergence of hybrid water supply services embedded in a localised hybrid governance system. ¶ I show how water governance in Tagbilaran is hybrid because of the global-local dialectic that informs policy and practice, public-private engagement in water provision, and inter-jurisdictional water sharing. I also demonstrate how households’ experiences of water supply and their physical environment influence decisions about household allocation and perceptions about human-environment interactions and water security. As a consequence, knowledge about water governance held at the household level emerges as localised and specific in which everyday experience shapes ideas around responsibility and agency such that local forms of government and engagement have more meaning for households than national and supra-national discourse. The juxtaposition of formal, bureaucratic governance institutions with household knowledge exposes multiple understandings of water governance and water supply in Tagbilaran. ¶ The findings of this research reveal that household conceptions of water governance are divorced from formal conceptions of water governance. There is a risk, therefore, that an over-emphasis on network expansion without due consideration of water resource management may lead to greater levels of consumption. This will continue to place pressure on resources and may ultimately lead to water insecurity. This is because local knowledge of the formal political, economic, and administrative institutions is limited at the household level. Therefore, this research argues that local perspectives and knowledge need to be incorporated more into management and policy decision making. Alternatively, greater effort needs to be made to communicate formal policy to the household level.

Increasing urbanization is a dominant global trend of the past few decades. For cities to become more sustainable, however, the infrastructure on which they rely must also become more efficient and resilient. Urban infrastructure systems are analogous to ecological systems because they are interconnected, complex and adaptive, are comprised of interconnected components, and exhibit characteristic scaling properties. Analyzing them together as a whole, as one would do for an ecological system, provides a better understanding about their dynamics and interactions, and enables system-level optimization. The adoption of this “infrastructure ecology” approach will result in urban development that costs less to build and maintain, is more sustainable (e.g. uses less materials and energy) and resilient, and enables a greater and more equitable creation of wealth and comfort. Resilience, or the capacity of a system to absorb shocks and perform under perturbations, can serve as an appropriate indicator of functional sustainability for dynamic adaptive systems like Urban Water Systems. This research developed an index of resilience (R-Index) to quantify the “full-spectrum” resilience of urban water systems. It developed five separate indices, namely (i) Index of Water Scarcity (IWS), (ii) Relative Dependency Index (RDI), (iii) Water Quality Index (WQI), (iv) Index of Network Resilience (INR), and (v) Relative Criticality Index (RCI), to address the criticalities inherent to urban water systems and then combines them to develop the R-Index through a multi-criteria decision analysis method. The research further developed a theoretical construct to quantify the temporal aspect of resilience, i.e. how quickly the system can return back to its original performance level. While there is a growing impetus of incorporating sustainability in decision making, frequently it comes at the cost of resilience. This is attributable to the fact that the decision-makers often lack a life-cycle perspective and a proven, consistent and robust approach to understand the tradeoff between increased resilience and its impact on sustainability. This research developed an approach to identify the sustainable and resilient (SuRe) zone of urban infrastructure planning and design where both sustainability and resilience can be pursued together.

Reliable clean water supply and treated sewage are fundamental for human health and wellbeing. Water scarcity becomes a discussing concern due to the unfair distribution of resources and different amount of precipitation in some parts of the earth. Although water-related issues are highly influenced by climate changes, there are always various mismanagements of human kind in local scale which totally affects the natural water cycle. Therefore, an urban water system and how this system copes with the natural and built environment are going to be studied in this research. Reviewing the urban management and decision making process inIran, privatization and its prerequisites is the main backbone of this thesis. The central region ofIran,Yazd, has been selected as the case study. This water-stressed area is located on desert margins which water plays a key role in every new and existing development. Along with studying vulnerability of urban water system in this area, the potential risks and crisis would be pointed out. Finally, the analysis and discussion to the current of water sector’s situation based on previous experiences have been presented.

Urban drinking-water supplies are still implicated as pathways for the transmission of waterborne disease. A move toward risk informed, proactive water system management has occurred over the past decade and is advocated in current international drinking water guidelines. Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) is a tool with potential for aiding health risk management; however the refinement of scientific based practical methods to support that philosophy still requires development. This thesis focused on the water utility, its responsibility to manage microbial water safety, and how probabilistic QMRA may aid in developing management strategies. A framework for waterborne disease risk assessment from urban supply systems was derived and tested on an Australian case study. The main premise was that, in order for risk assessment outcomes to inform the management process, the steps should incorporate the concepts of risk variability, the explicit event conditions that can drive it, and that examination of QMRA sensitivity to various risk scenarios/model uncertainties is undertaken. The identified management uses were: (i) prioritising for attention issues hampering the system's ability to meet or the assessor's ability to interpret against (e.g. knowledge gaps about the system), a water quality health target; and (ii) identifying potential strategies or control points for addressing those issues. Additionally, rarely occurring, high impact, adverse fluctuations in treated water quality (and consumer infection risks), especially from source water contaminant "peaks", are highly, nearly totally, influential over the extent of risks averaged over longer, say annual, periods. As such, a case is made calling for widespread adoption of health targets that refer to tolerable consumer risks per exposure, rather than or as well as the current common practice of expressing targets in terms of risks from exposure over a year or lifetime. Doing so may provide incentive and opportunities for improved management, and the future derivation of specific microbial treatment or treated water quality targets, with a view toward protecting the community from extreme high risk periods associated with disease outbreaks.

Access to safe and sufficient drinking water and adequate sanitation are now recognized as basic human rights. One Millennium Development Goal is to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. However, ensuring sustainability of existing and new services is considered to be one of the major challenges for the water sector in the years to come. In India, in addition to service expansion, existing water service quality has been observed to be deteriorating over recent years. There is therefore an equally urgent need to address sustainability and improvement of service quality to the presently served population. In this low-income country, where water utilities are unable to recover even the service costs of operations and minor maintenance through user charges, there is a need to determine ways and means to be able to maintain a cost-effective service to consumers. For such a capital intensive service these ways have to include not only the introduction of efficiency measures but also the long-term planning of capital maintenance, that is the maintenance of the fixed assets upon which services depend. Water utilities in high-income countries have been using various fixed asset management techniques to improve asset operational efficiency, to plan capital maintenance and to demonstrate their ability to maintain and improve service to their customers. This study explores the viability of the application of asset management techniques and their potential contribution towards improving water service provision in urban centres in India. Following a literature review, a generic asset management model for a low-income country water utility was developed and then applied in the water utility serving Jaipur, Rajasthan to assess the viability of this adaptation. Having identified strengths and weaknesses during this fieldwork a revised model was proposed, including distinct phases of asset management/data intensity, which could be used as a generic approach in large urban centres in India. Following consultations with prospective users in six States, the study showed that it is feasible to take a first step towards asset management at low cost but this will require a change in the management approach. The study identified lack of relevant data as a key factor influencing an effective and comprehensive application of a generic asset management model. The study concludes that the proposed phased asset management models can contribute to improving serviceability for customers; however the concern that remains is the willingness of the organisation to adapt to the necessary changes.

Access to water and sanitation is indeed a human right; however quality water and sanitation service provision should not be assumed a ‘free service’ as a result. Hence it is crucial to understand the costs involved of monopoly water service provision to enable informed decision-making on tariff determination. Namibia, is not only characterised with extreme conditions of water scarcity and skewed income distribution, with a history of free water services, but it also is prone to information asymmetry and lack of transparency (especially financial) challenges in the price-setting process. Hence, the research aim was to adapt a framework for determining price-setting processes and to investigate the potential role of an economic regulator to inform the process and policy accordingly in Namibia. In this regard, the research explores the price-setting processes of independent economic regulators in England and Wales and Zambia (as a guide to understand the dynamics and intricacies of setting and enforcing prices for utilities based on the need for sustainable cost recovery and efficient service provision) to further investigate possible improvements to the Namibian price-setting process. The research objectives were explored through descriptive and exploratory case study approaches, mainly comprising of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. The research found that the most appropriate regulatory framework for Namibia is an intermediate framework- a hybrid regulatory body (consisting of a combination between government and independent expert panels). The research also identifies crucial operating principles, regulatory tools (with emphasis on accounting separation within financial models) and consumer involvement as major components for the Namibian price-setting process. In essence, accountability through transparency (effective information sharing and stakeholder involvement) is identified by the study to address the principal-agent challenges faced within Namibia, especially given the extreme conditions.

The performance of public utilities in low-income countries with respect to service to all customers, and particularly lower-income urban consumers, is understood to be limited in many cases. The Government of Ghana chose to implement a private sector management contract in order to deliver significant change in service delivery and financial viability. The five year management contract with Aqua Vitens Rand Limited ran from 2006 to 2011 and was not renewed. This study investigates the public utility outcomes, both as a state owned corporation and a state owned limited liability Company, and compares those outcomes with the achievements of the private operator through a Management Contract. The latter two management models operated under the oversight of the newly formed economic regulator, the Public Utility Regulatory Commission in 1999 and any effect of that regulation is considered. The hypothesis of the study developed in 2008 was that “a management contract would not provide the necessary level of empowerment, incentives and commitment and access to resources for a private operator to adequately and efficiently perform even where there is an established economic regulator with a clear mandate”. The case study approach was employed for the study data was gathered on the operations, activities, regulation and management of the urban water utility through documentary review, key-informant interviews, household surveys, public hearing meetings and user observations. However, three major cities including Accra, Kumasi and Tamale were used for the household survey. These three cities were carefully picked out taking into account the political, economic, geographical, social and cultural significance that each of the them represents and commands in Ghana.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / This study focuses on the contradictory ways officials frame the problem of providing water services in Kampala with specific emphasis on the debates about framing of key factors that constrain delivery. Perceptions about and framing of policy issues implicitly suggest the causes of problems. Policy scholars acknowledge that formulating policy is “messy” and that it is about values, and not as “evidence-based” as is often assumed. Using a social constructionist perspective that stresses that perceptions tell one how people define situations, this study demonstrates the often contradictory ways that state officials see public problems. Drawing on debates about rational and muddling-through approaches, the study uses thirty structured questionnaires and several semi-structured in-depth interviews to explore the narratives of government officials regarding policy formulation in water delivery. The thesis found that almost all officials see rapid growth in population density in informal areas coupled with unplanned settlements as the single biggest combined issue inhibiting progress. Officials favoured market-related solutions even though their diagnosis of the problem suggested more concerted and comprehensive public planning of urban development.

The author examines effective urban water management as a means to promote sustainable development and achieve water sensitive cities. A qualitative method is utilised in the collection of data through document studies, desktop analysis and a literature review. A review of the current national and local water policies and approaches within South Africa, and more specifically Cape Town, indicated the need for a coordinated, systems based and holistic approach to urban water management. Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) is considered as an alternative approach to urban water management in Cape Town to build resilience among local communities against the threat of drought and flood events, and promote sustainable development in moving toward a water sensitive city. A model for implementing WSUD in the context of limited resources and capacity within local municipal departments is considered. Incorporating the principles of WSUD within spatial planning initiatives to implement this approach and catalyse a systemic transition in urban water management is considered and assessed in a case study of the proposed development of the River Club. The case study considers a bottom-up approach to transforming urban water management and the capacity of WSUD, when implemented through spatial planning, to simultaneously address multiple objectives including those of sustainable development and those contained within national and local policies. The benefits of a WSUD approach for all are considered. Many if these benefits are as a result of reduced pressures on municipal infrastructure and increased water resources accrued as a product of the proposed implementation model. The implementation model proposed creates conditions in which municipal resources and investment can be redirected to promote equitable water resource and service provision distribution throughout the city. The model is proposed to effect a transformation in water policy, institutional structures and water resource management to reflect the principles of WSUD in a manner which is cognisant of the various limitations inherent to the City.

Nothing can exist, live, survive or thrive without water. Water is the basis of life for all living organisms and the centre of life for all societies. The global attitude around water has become territorial as it encompasses an intricate link to the development of nations. Centralising main water supplies beyond urban boundaries may have improved the utilisation of water but has also resulted in the separation of society and water. Water is what gave rise to the city of Cape Town, as there was an abundance of rivers and springs located on and around Table Mountain. This water was first used by the Khoi people and became the reason for colonial settlers residing in the Cape. The City is currently experiencing the worst water crisis in over a century due to increased temperatures and decreased rainfall. Amid the water crisis there appears to be underused, freshwater below Cape Town's CBD, flowing to the Atlantic Ocean via the stormwater reticulation system. This water originates from Table Mountain's rivers, streams and, to an extent, springs. Naturally, the drought has sparked widespread concern for, and attention given to, water and its sustainable usage. This dissertation explores the ways in which the City's water, environmental and spatial planning policies could spark a new and improved water-culture within Cape Town to ensure sustainable, long-term water availability. This is done through investigating the potential of Oranjezicht in becoming a catalytic area for water sustainability due to the locations of the Field of Springs and the Platteklip Stream. This dissertation proposes using water sensitive urban design as well as integrated, collaborative partnerships and management mechanisms to encourage an improved urban water culture.