Page 545 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

with regard to the smart water technology market. In other instances, they have contributed to
stifle the development of this market.

Countries such as Canada, Israel and Singapore have been implementing policies at both the
national and state levels on smart water systems, supporting green innovation and intelligent water
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technologies, which have led to the emergence of new smart water companies . However, these
policies have not specifically targeted smart water systems, but instead have been presented in the
form of "Sustainability, Environment, and Water initiatives", "Water Technologies" and "Efficiency
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Initiatives" .
The key issues, however, have remained. What types of policies are required to accompany the
development and stimulate the diffusion of ICT for water management? When should these policies
be implemented? In addition to these issues, the baseline methodologies that need to be
established for determining the trade‐offs and synergistic benefits for ICT innovations within water
management frameworks at the national and regional levels, have been overlooked, or otherwise
focused on narrow sector‐driven mandates.

Since the current smart water market is fairly new and fragmented, policies will need to be
adaptable, while at the same time reflecting the country's intention of deployment and the type of
technologies considered. Unfortunately, due the young nature of the smart water market, there
have only been limited incentives and initiatives that pursue a more integrated research approach
across sectoral domains. Herein lies a problem. Since policy developers need to co‐ordinate efforts
and have access to clear informational resources (many of which can only be provided through
research and careful examination of the water sector within a given country), inadequate and
narrow‐minded frameworks are often designed.
In brief, properly timed and flexible policies are essential for the adoption of smart water
management initiatives in urban areas. Therefore, governments should support new, generic,
flexible smart water management incentives, especially those that support full system integration.
This ensures that policy makes are better equipped with the knowledge necessary to design
effective smart water polices. Coherent cross‐sector policies developed through a multi stakeholder
approach will ensure the success and sustainability of these tools.
Consequently, a coherent strategy must be the starting point before implementation of any city‐
wide SWM initiative. This facilitates the development of innovative partnerships to harness and
utilize the necessary information effectively, thereby creating guidelines, strategies and best
practices properly tailored through protocols and standards.
Standardization and policy development must be appropriately co‐ordinated and taken forward
based on robust research, including a careful examination of the water and wastewater sector, as
well as the broad engagement of key stakeholders (e.g. different governmental sectors, non‐
governmental organizations (NGOs), academia, and the private sector) within a given city.

Conclusions

Although cities represent just 2% of the world's surface area, they hold more than half of the global
population. Providing sustainable access to water will be among the greatest challenges in the
coming half century. As the analysis presented in this Technical Report suggests, fast‐paced
urbanization places high competition on existing water resources, and is exacerbating pressures
linked to rapid population growth and to the uncertainty posed by climate change impacts. Failing
to meet the new challenges and demands associated to water resources could seriously undermine

ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications 535