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Water – And what about the future? A thought piece.
Author: Graham Mann, Water Audit Expert.
This came across my desktop today, although I have not read it in full (its a take home task) it is a very interesting thought provoking and fascinating document for anybody interested in water, I would say a must read!
This paper has been prepared by UKWRIP’s Water and Cities Action Group at the invitation of the expert group advising the current foresight “future of cities” project. The project is identifying the opportunities and challenges that UK cities will face in the future and need to embrace in order to be resilient, to be adaptable and to thrive.
UKWRIP is a collaboration between the water industry, policy and research communities providing guidance and co-ordination for water research and innovation in the UK. UKWRIP has now become the research and innovation arm of the UK water partnership launched February 2015.
Contents – Executive summary.
Where water provision and use are concerned the cities of the future will face a whole range of major challenges. These revolve around the ability not only to meet fundamental needs in terms of water supply, wastewater treatment and drainage services but also to safeguard water’s many indirect benefits such as health, wellbeing and biodiversity. Moreover these goals need to be achieved while protecting the wider environment and ensuring cities resilience against extreme events such as flooding.
Key to meeting these challenges is the development of a clear picture of the many ways in which water use, needs and resilience could be addressed in future cities and what still needs to be done in the field of research for such possibilities to be realised.
As a starting point this paper sets out 5 different non-exclusive visions that provide examples of how many cities might potentially be tackling the issue of water cycle management in the year 2065. Realising such vision will mean ensuring that the necessary technologies, capabilities, processes and practices are not just made feasible but also become available on the required timescale. This in turn requires the effective tackling of a range of underpinning, often interconnected challenges not specific to any one vision but applying more widely to the ability to set cities water use, needs and resilience on a secure future footing.
In this paper eight such challenges are pinpointed, together with a selection of current / recent research and innovation initiatives and some of the key questions that still need to be addressed in each area.
A) The purpose of this paper.
B) Water and cities – A fluid relationship.
C) Five visions of the future: – 1) Green Food and Garden cityscapes. 2) Flood proof. 3) Smart homes and city networks. 4) Cities and the underworld. 5) Community transition cities.
D) Eight underpinning challenges: – 1) Water quality / quantity for life, health and leisure. 2) End user and city dweller behaviour / demand. 3) Infrastructure above ground. 4) Infrastructure below ground. 5) City groundwater management. 6) Risk and resilience to extreme events. 7) Environmental and ecosystems. 8) Cross cutting issues and whole system approaches.
E) Towards tomorrow – City simulators and demonstrators.
F) Conclusions and next steps.
“Water for life” gs-15-27-future-visions-for-water-and-cities-thought-piece