IAdapt-Resources

Resources

Urban Water systems are actively managed by people who make day to day operational decisions. There are several toolkits developed to assist stakeholders to tackle the complexity of urban water systems which is caused by the constant changes due to demographics, urban renewal, infrastructure aging and replacement etc. Most toolkits provide a step by step guidance to formulate and implement IUWM in cities. Some of the toolkits referred are:

IAdapt Framework

The IAdapt Framework is based on the ICLEI Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) Process or IAP toolkit , the Adopting Integrated Urban Water Management toolkit (AdoptIUWM toolkit) and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) methodology for ecosystem assessment. The Framework is designed to assist rural and urban local governments to come together and formulate micro-catchment level water management plans guided by the principles of integrated water resource management.

The Framework promotes an integrated approach to ensuring water security, by looking at the interactions and interdependencies among water, waste water and storm water with other sectors such as health, agriculture, solid waste, industry, etc. It brings together different administrative, planning and regulatory systems by creating a RURBAN platform that includes both rural and urban stakeholders at various levels such as local authorities as well as civil society.

The IAdapt Framework consists of five phases to assist in developing the Catchment Management Plan for selected micro-catchments in city-regions. The five phases are:

This phase includes formation of the core team and the RURBAN platform and engagements with both entities. It provides information on the institutional requirements of implementing the IAdapt Framework in a city region.

This phase involves collection of socio-economic, environmental and governance data at the micro-catchment level. It provides tools to record baseline information on which further assessments are conducted in later stages.

This phase includes climate scenario assessment, scoring of water resource integration, systems assessment and risk assessment, besides vulnerability assessment. It will help to select the particular sector/issue for developing integrated solutions for water management.

This phase includes selection of resilience interventions and their prioritisation. It provides tools to assess the interventions in terms of their resilience potential and potential to support integrated water management.

This phase describes the structure of the Catchment Management Plan. It provides information on the action planning and monitoring of the action plan.

For the detailed Framework, please click here.

RURBAN Platform

RURBAN (Rural-Urban) platform is a governance mechanism to promote participatory and collaborative decisions on shared water resources at a catchment level. The platform is an active cross-sectoral network consisting of decision makers and practitioners from relevant government departments, non-government bodies and civil society to facilitate climate adaptive water management based on integrated urban water management (IUWM) and integrated water resource management (IWRM) principles. It helps to institutionalise the collaboration among rural and urban stakeholders to support integrated water management.

The RURBAN Platform involves key individuals from the district departments, state departments and officials representing urban and rural authorities, which will be responsible for interactions and discussions on integrated water management strategies and actions. This platform is a larger body who facilitates collaboration and participation from both rural and urban counterparts and supports the preparation of the catchment management plan using the IAdapt Framework.

The RURBAN Platform facilitates

1 Exchange of information
2 Collaborative Actions
3 Formulation and design of plans

The members of the RURBAN Platform must belong to one of the following categories:

1 Having the ability to develop water strategies and actions at the community level
2 Having the ability to develop water strategies & actions at the administrative level
3 Having the ability to support implementation of water sector related actions at different levels (e.g. community, city level)
4 Those who are most affected by water related issues

The RURBAN Platform members should set up a vision for their city region and support the development of the catchment management plan in a way that supports and facilitates the achievement of this vision.

A brief outline of the RURBAN Platform is given here.

Decision Support Tool

The Decision Support Tool (DST) – developed under the IAdapt project – aims to introduce scientific decision-making in integrated rural-urban water management. The user-friendly tool will enable the RURBAN platform stakeholders to understand the impact of climate change, and recommend appropriate solutions and best practices in adaption and sustainability.

The tool simulates water supply and demand in the rural-urban water system. It is an online tool that supports the identification of measures to make water management interventions more climate adaptive.

The DST has two modules: -

Climate change / new investment factors are taken into account to estimate the water balance across user groups in the catchment, using Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) software, which simulates probable scenarios.

For each simulated scenario, potential solutions are recommended and prioritized along with best practices for each stakeholder group, on the basis of financial and risk assessments and stakeholder inputs.

The DST does not determine whether the project or DPR is compliant to the requirements for integrated water management. Its simple application is in the evaluation of the water balance for a selected time period of the water infrastructure projects and recommending plausible solutions to the stakeholders.

A brief outline of the decision support tool can be found here.