Transformation Management for a Sustainable Water Infrastructure

The established rules for planning which have so far been used within the water management are now being questioned by demographic and climate change. Already pipes, sewers and plants are not used to their dimensioned capacity which means that their economic and operational capability is being constricted. This set of problems is especially true for Central European municipalities responsible for the provision of water and disposal of wastewater. This means they have to deal with the complexity and incertitude of this instable situation and are therefore now faced with the necessity to make some radical decisions which also affect the extent to which investments will have to be made. The research project is thus aiming to support those municipalities with the help of participative scenarios and newly developed methods for transformation management. Activating research is an essential element when it comes to initiating modification and deconstruction of the water infrastructure.

Identifying Realistic Alternatives

In the context of an international review alternatives which are either already existing or in the process of being developed with respect to the provision of water and disposal of waste water will be identified and described. The entire spectrum ranging from model projects to the extensive implementation within existing settings will be taken into consideration and all experiences gained will be taken into account. All this will be the basis for a cooperation with different departments and economic actors within the exemplary municipalities in order to draw up participative scenarios for future water systems and find out possibilities of a controlled transformation of the water infrastructure. As a preparation ISOE is going to introduce the set-up of scenarios in the towns concerned and will at the same time put them into practice and evaluate them. The methods will be based on a decision support system which was developed in the netWORKS project and which allows adaptive planning. For the municipal practice the development of planning alternatives and strategies will be made possible thus facilitating the reconstruction of conventional infrastructural systems which then can be fitted into the planning process.

Considering Profitability

The chances and risks of putting alternatives into practice (for example with newly developed sanitary systems) are very much depending on the investment costs (and also on possible remaining accruals for the sewage system, e.g.). With this background of complexity and generally changing framework conditions the horizon of business management will have to be surpassed and an evaluation of the costs and efficiency of alternative plants and networks must be made also on a broad economic level taking resources into account. The optimal point in time for the introduction of system alternatives will also be identified.

Putting Concept Research into Practice

The project is showing the path leading from the development of a transdisciplinary concept to its being tested and put into practice

Expert Discussion "Sustainable Urban Water Infrastructure – Possibilities of Adaptation and Transformation"

From September 21st to 23rd 2008 the international expert discussion "Sustainable Urban Water Infrastructure – Possibilities of Adaptation and Transformation" took place in Berlin, Germany. The aim of this workshop was to review the changes in urban water management. Approaches of a differentiate way of dealing with water (e.g. supply with process water, separated treatment of wastewater) are no longer only a subject of so-called pilot projects, but, against the background of new boundary conditions (e.g. adaptation to climate change), have become more relevant in built-up areas. Researchers from Australia, China, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Israel and the USA have confirmed that the central question of a purposive design of the transition to a new infrastructure system within this BMBF-project is of high relevance and should be observed more intensively at international level.

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