Urban Water Initiative

Integrated Urban Water Management Partnership Programme (IUWM PP)

India’s urban morphology is characterised by abnormal & unprecedented growth of 1 lakh+ cities in the last few decades with more sub 1 lakh towns adding to this list. While essential infrastructure systems have been put in most urban centres, their management & optimisation to meet growing demand are far from satisfactory. India’s urban water sector domain is characterised by increasing competing uses, allocation issues, declining sources & inconsistent supplies, service delivery gaps, insufficient models for sustainable urban water management (UWM), urban poor issues, multiple institutional players, asset management shortfalls, weak local capacities, low system efficiencies, low sensitivity levels towards environmental safeguards, low awareness levels etc. With the cities promoting water-intensive developments, the need today is to treat urban water management on a wider canvas in contrast to conventional approaches. Contextually, Integrated Urban Water management (IUWM) comes into the picture as a possible option to tackle issues systematically and holistically.  

The Integrated Urban Water Management Partnership Programme (IUWM PP) embodies the various components of water management, including the political, environmental, social, economic and technical. It aims at providing all stakeholders with a vision, framework and comprehensive set of practical actions to enable the holistic, sustainable and equitable management of freshwater resources.

While principles on IUWM are widely agreed to and documented, our approach to the issue starts from the understanding of sustainability which relates to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society, as well as the non-human environment. Under this premise, “DRAW–USE–REPLENISH” approach to water and sanitation is conceptualised. This concept allows cities to draw water of any quantum from the source (surface / ground, local / regional) to manage demand, and simultaneously release equal quantum of water back to the source / region for further use.

Considering and understanding that a programme of this nature requires huge inputs – time, money, human resources and willingness, the involvement of like minded partners becomes critical. The programme is also titled on those lines as a PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMME, wherein each partner in its own domain can charter the agenda to reach the common goal of creating a living example of sustainably managed city. The partners as we see are three types – knowledge / technology partners (who bring in technology options for sustainable systems management), funding partners (who bring in financial support) and sector partners (who bring in experiences from implementing similar programmes in whole / part).

The two fold strategy of IUWM PP would be to

• Develop a Practical Framework for IUWM – At the macro (state) level to facilitate the willing Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to associate / take up the programme and the micro (town) level to facilitate the implementation process in a comprehensive and integrated manner
• Demonstrate the IUWM PP in pilot town (s) to strengthen the framework

The entire programme (framework design & pilot town implementation) is planned in 3 stage process and expected to last for 36 months. The anticipated outcomes at the end would be to:

• Recognise that drinking water is intricately connected to other infrastructure sectors & urban planning and equitable service delivery is the key principle for service provider
• Move from city level to regional level thinking on water resources management
• Integrated management of all water related sectors
• Allow space for alternate service delivery models to co-exist with existing models
• Plan for active community & partner involvement in project related activities

Read more about Arghyam’s Urban Water Conference