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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND WATERappreciate the need for balance between consumption and conservationof the city’s natural resources. The goal of sustainabilityrepresents a paradigm shift in urban design – as much in thecitizens as in the ‘experts’.Resilience for water sensitive cities rests on enlightened riskmanagement, looking beyond the month, the year or the decade.In developed countries, strategies to meet emerging challenges areoften encumbered by ‘path-dependent lock-in’: narrow horizonsand an institutional legacy that limits the range of acceptable interventionsto those that fit old paradigms. But the old paradigms forwater management have broken down, and there is no turningback. Many attempted solutions address only the efficiency ofexisting urban water systems; but that is not enough. To borrowfrom Aesop’s well-known fable, the oak that simply grows largerand thicker does not gain resilience – which comes, after all, fromflexibility accompanied by a sense of scale and balance. Resilienceis responsiveness. It is adaptation to new scenarios, new visionsand new prospective solutions. Successful urban communities areextremely complex socio-physical systems that are fully integratedand constantly evolving. Harmony of the built, social and naturalenvironments within a city depends on interactions betweensocial capital and natural resources. Urban communities must bedesigned for resilience in the face of climate change, particularlyallowing for the sustainable management of water resources andthe protection of water environments. The ‘wicked problem’ weface in building water resilience against increased climatic variabilityand uncertainty is multifaceted. It cannot be narrowly orexclusively focused on water management, or on hard separationof any traditional categories; sustainable solutions will be holisticinterdisciplinary solutions.Liveability in water sensitive cities may be an outcome, but it isalso a prerequisite. The human-friendly quality of public spaces isnecessary if urban landscape is to enjoy the respect of city-dwellers.The ecological functioning of the urban landscapes – capturing theessence of sustainable water management, microclimate influences,facilitation of carbon sinks and use for food production – cannotproceed unless it is harmonized with the natural human need forfreedom of access, ease of movement and space for play and refreshment.Liveable spaces are sustainable spaces; they will be designedto enhance social engagement and cultural expression – incorporating,for example, water-art features – and the establishment ofbiodiversity in terrestrial and aquatic corridors.Assuming that the three pillars are now in place, there remainquestions of implementation. Some broad observations follow.Greenfield implementation of WSUD is the ‘express’ pathway totransforming our cities and towns; but there is often an ingrainedconservatism in greenfield development. A reluctance to takeresponsibility for innovation leads to avoidance of the challengealtogether, so that old structures are replicated – forcing retrofittingin the long term. Furthermore, retrofitting to implementinstitutional and material change for WSUD is always problematic;but very often there is no alternative. In the end, thebest of greenfield and the best of retrofitting options must beused harmoniously; they go hand-in-hand for a truly integratedapproach to the organic renewal of cities. To achieve this integration,accurate policy settings are essential. Policy that enables,not policy that micromanages, is a necessity for WSUD. Policythat micromanages in a direct attempt to solve complex problemsdefies the very definition of ‘policy’; the apolitical social-scien-tific and physical-scientific implementation of WSUDmust unequivocally be enabled, if there is to bedurable improvement.Developing countries, where infrastructure andinstitutions are not well established, are fortunatein at least two respects: retrofitting of a city isfrequently not an option, because material infrastructurefor water management may be either absent orapt for wholesale replacement; and the social infrastructureis often readier to accommodate the newWSUD strategies. It is imperative that internationalaid programmes avoid inadvertently exporting prejudicesthat inform traditional design of water systems.The greenfield opportunities afforded in developingcountries present substantial challenges, and thesemust be met with new thinking. In return, theyprovide opportunities for learning that can be appliedin developed countries.The nexus between food security and watersecurity is a salient concern in the urban context.Efficient use of natural resources, such as recoveryand recycling of water and nutrients, is vital forsecuring food production. Cities and towns are hometo 70 per cent of the world’s population, and vastlymore food is consumed in them than in rural areas– from which the bulk of food must be transported.Communities must bear responsibility for their inefficientconsumption of food, water and energy. Wethrow away more than 30 per cent of food produced;and we have scarcely begun to capture wastewaterfor appropriate reuse, let alone ‘waste heat’ fromelectricity production. Urban sewerage systemscarry substantial nutrient residues, and the recoveryof these will be important to sustaining productivelandscapes. Sewage treatment plants must becomeresource recovery plants. Transforming our citiestowards efficient consumption requires innovationand socio-technical synergies, starting with concertedefforts at behavioural change and community awareness.District-level trigeneration, reticulation of hotwater and the use of available heat for water disinfectionare simple examples of pioneering ‘catalytic’initiatives that exploit the water-energy nexus inurban development.The creation of productive landscapes emerges as akey to developing green urban infrastructure. Citiesare water catchments: in most Australian cities, thecombined stormwater and wastewater resourcesexceed the water consumption. These resources couldsupport greener cities for a multitude of liveabilityobjectives, including community gardens, orchardsand urban forests.The challenges of effective, equitable watermanagement are among the most serious that theworld community faces. Like problems of populationand climate change, they must be faced togetherby a free flow of experience and knowledge. Theseproblems belong to no community in isolation, andthe solutions must similarly be shared.[ 278 ]