Need to adopt scaled decentralized systems in the water infrastructure to achieve sustainability and build resilience

Abstract

Urban water infrastructure (UWI) in cities faces enormous pressure to cope with increased water demands, handle extreme events and improve the service with minimum resource consumption and environmental impacts. The current study presents an approach for addressing the challenges in UWI, specifically in water supply and sewerage. The article argues a need for a paradigm shift that simultaneously includes the sustainability and resilience aspects throughout the life cycle of UWI. The article further highlights the issues in the prevailing approach of centralized infrastructure and demonstrates the necessity of moving away from such an approach and shifting towards decentralized infrastructure. Understanding the factors accelerating decentralization to attain a paradigm shift to decentralization is necessary. Hence, the study first identifies the drivers of decentralization. Secondly, the need for an appropriate scale to be considered while implementing decentralized UWI is highlighted in this study. Furthermore, the effect of the scale of infrastructure is discussed through the trade-offs between life-cycle costs, ease of governance, resilience and recycling benefits. The approach of scaled decentralization outlined in the study will be useful for developing countries to plan new infrastructure and also for developed countries to replace the ageing UWI to create future sustainable and resilient urban systems