Overcoming the Challenges of Water, Waste and Climate Change in Asian Cities

Abstract

Unprecedented challenges in urban management of water, waste and climate change-amplified by urbanisation and economic growth-are growing in Asia. In this circumstance, cities need to be aware of threats and opportunities to improve their capacity in addressing these challenges. This paper identifies priorities, barriers and enablers of these capacities. Through the City Blueprint^® Approach-an integrated baseline assessment of the urban water cycle-11 Asian cities are assessed. Three cities are selected for an in-depth governance capacity analysis of their challenges with a focus on floods. Solid waste collection and treatment and access to improved drinking water and sanitation can be considered priorities, especially in cities with considerable slum populations. These people are also disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate-related hazards. The high variation of water management performance among Asian cities shows high potential for city-to-city learning by sharing best practices in water technology and governance. Combining interventions, i.e., by exploring co-benefits with other sectors (e.g., transport and energy) will increase efficiency, improve resilience, and lower the cost. Although governance capacities varied among cities, management of available information, monitoring and evaluation showed to be reoccurring points for improvement. Cities are also expected to increase implementation capacities using better policy, stricter compliance and preparedness next to promoting community involvement. Consequently, the city transformation process can be more concrete, efficient and inclusive.

Keywords: Cities; Climate change; SDG6; Solid waste; Wastewater; Water governance; Water management.

Fig. 1

Overview of the City Blueprint Approach comprising three complementary diagnostic assessment frameworks (Koop and Van Leeuwen , ; Koop et al. 2017)

Fig. 2

Map with eleven Asian cities included in the City Blueprint study. The cities’ categorisation is in accordance with Table 1

Fig. 3

Spider diagrams based on 25 performance indicators for Jakarta (top), Tianjin (centre) and Singapore (bottom). The BCI, the geometric means of the 25 indicators, are 2.0, 4.9 and 8.1, respectively

Fig. 4

Correlation of the BCI with the TPI, climate readiness index (ND-GAIN 2018), government effectiveness (World Bank 2018) and GDP per capita (IMF 2017). The correlation coefficients are, respectively, −0.79, 0.80, 0.80 and 0.70

Fig. 5

Population living in slums (%) for each country in relation to improved sanitation facilities (%; left) and access to improved water sources (%; right). Data from the World Bank (2014, 2015a, 2015b)