Page 516 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

3 Urban water issues

Cities rely on multiple utility infrastructure systems that are characterized by their complexity, as
well as by high investment and management costs. In the years ahead, it is expected that cities and
other urban centres will encounter resource distribution challenges associated with an increase in
population flow, energy issues due to the depletion of fossil fuel resources, increased investment
overheads, spiralling maintenance and management costs due to aging infrastructure and improper
land resource utilization, among others. Innovative and new sustainable systems are essential to
minimize the impact of these emergent challenges.

Based on the context presented thus far, the provision of clean and reliable water constitutes a key
area for the functioning of urban systems. Rapid urbanization, poverty and urban decay, weak
political leadership and governance, insufficient and inadequate infrastructure, under investment
and pricing issues, are among the key, and mutually re‐enforcing factors that impinge upon a city's
water management system. These factors are further exacerbated by the impacts of climate change
and other environmental stressors, ultimately heightening water management challenges, and
constraining the availability and the quality of urban water resources. The interconnected and
dynamic nature of urban water management challenges is illustrated in Figure 2.

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Source: Adapted from McIntosh (2014).
Figure 2 – Influencing factors on urban water management challenges

This figure suggests that the impacts of climate change, among other stressors, exacerbate the
complex set of challenges that affect urban water management systems (e.g. aging infrastructure,
urban sanitation problems). At the same time, these challenges impinge upon the effectiveness of
water management systems to prepare for, withstand, recover and adjust to these impacts. In order
to understand better the linkages between these challenges and water management, the following
section explores some of the key factors that influence urban water management.

506 ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications