Title

Institutions and Decentralised Urban Water

Rainwater tank at one of case study project sites

Supervisors

Prof Nicholas Ashbolt, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW
Dr Hal K Colebatch, Department of Public Policy and Administration, University Brunei Darussalam

Aims

• Analyse the governing of the urban water cycle, taking an institutional approach, to identify if and how centralised water management is favoured over decentralised.
  
• Identify important institutional supporting factors for decentralised options and develop a governance framework for pursuing decentralised options.

Project Outline

Water scarcity is driving significant reform toward more sustainable water management. Decentralised technologies and approaches are among a broad suite of possible solutions. These are being researched and developed technologically, but there is an apparent implementation gap or barrier, often thought to be social or institutional.

Four Australian urban water management case studies were researched primarily through in-depth semi-structured interviews of 80 key players and stakeholders for the four projects studied. The cases were chosen because they had potential for decentralised solutions to be implemented. Three of the projects did employ decentralised approaches, while the fourth opted for a conventional centralised solution.

Decentralised innovation tended to occur where there was a dominant enabling discourse among key participants favourable toward such alternatives. Water scarcity and the emerging discourse of integrated water management were significant in all three cases where decentralisation was pursued. Formal technical or multi-criteria assessments did not appear consistently linked with whether project outcomes would be centralised or decentralised. The enabling discourses tended to have adaptive and participative organisational structures, e.g., a new organisational unit established, where such ideas and values were part of ‘accepted speech’.

The implication of this research for future water management planning is that for decentralised innovation to be successful, project planning should include a querying of the existing organisational structure within which a project is to be delivered, and establishment of an appropriate organisational ‘home’ for the innovation to take place.

Progress (February 2006)

Field work and analysis is complete; and a first draft of almost the entire thesis is written. Expected submission date is April 2006.

Nick Ashbolt demonstrating source separating technology

Brainstorming options and participative planning - Scotland Is