A new discussion paper published by the research and innovation arm of the UK Water Partnership has flagged up fundamental challenges the UK needs to address as a matter of priority to develop-water resilient cities and highlighted key areas where further research is needed.

The paper has been prepared by UKWRIP’s Water and Cities Action Group at the invitation of the Expert Group advising the current Foresight ‘Future of Cities’ project. The project is identifying the opportunities and challenges that UK cities will face in future and need to embrace in order to be resilient, adaptable and thrive.

The paper says that cities will face a whole range of major challenges with regard to water provision and use. In addition to meeting fundamental needs in terms of water supply, wastewater treatment and drainage services, these will also extend to safeguarding many indirect benefits including health, wellbeing and biodiversity. The goals will also need to be achieved while protecting the wider environment and ensuring cities’ resilience against extreme events such as flooding.

The development of a clear picture of the ways in which water use, needs and resilience could be addressed in future cities is key to meeting these challenges and to identify further research activities.

The paper sets out five different, non-exclusive visions that provide examples of how cities might potentially be tackling the issue of water cycle management in the year 2065:

• Vision 1 – Green Food & Garden Cityscapes: More food is grown both in and on buildings, while water-sensitive urban design management plays a pivotal role.
• Vision 2 – Flood-proof Cities: Existing cities and new city areas floating on stilts are designed to withstand sea-level rise, extreme rainfall and expansion of river floodplains.
• Vision 3 – Smart Homes & City Networks: Using the internet, appliances, networks and data-hubs interact to ensure optimal management of water supply and demand.
• Vision 4 – Cities & the Underworld: Deep geology beneath cities is harnessed to house combined systems delivering effective drainage, water, heating and cooling services.
• Vision 5 – Community Transition Cities: Utility-run programmes change communities’ water-related habits and practices by ‘transitioning’ these to a more sustainable level.

The paper argues that ensuring the necessary technologies, capabilities, processes and practices are not just made feasible but also become available in the required timescale in order to realise such visions.

Eight underpinned and interconnected challenges which need to be effectively tackled which widely apply to the ability to set cities’ water use, needs and resilience on a secure future footing are highlighted in the paper as follows:

• Water Quantity/Quality for Life, Health & Leisure – embracing the most fundamental water needs of urban communities and recognising that freshwater sources within cities may be insufficient to keep pace with 21st century population densities.
• End-user & City-dweller Behaviour/Demand – focusing on the need to use water more efficiently and to cut overall demand if possible, especially in view of anticipated strains on water supplies due to growing populations and climate change.
• Infrastructure: Above Ground – assessing whether ‘small is beautiful’ or ‘big is best’ and whether centralised or decentralised arrangements represent the most effective, most efficient approach to providing water services for cities.
• Infrastructure: Below Ground – considering how infrastructure systems buried underground interact with the natural environment, understanding the stresses involved and how these can impact on system performance.
• City Groundwater Management – encompassing the function, governance and sustainable management of groundwater in an urban context and recognising how water resources are supplied from a wider catchment area extending beyond city boundaries.
• Risk & Resilience to Extreme Events – understanding the risks cities face in terms of all kinds of extreme natural and manmade hazards and building resilience against them, especially in the context of climate change and its anticipated impact on rainfall patterns.
• Environment & Ecosystems – evaluating the impact that future cities will have on the wider environment, particularly in the context of the potential need for greater reliance on local provision of goods/services and the resulting requirement to protect local ecosystems. This includes addressing the environmental implications of the use of above-ground SuDS in cities and the use of stormwater and groundwater. It also asks what would be a good ecosystem management approach to rivers, surface waters, flood management and sustainable drainage in cities.
• Cross-cutting Issues & Whole-system Approaches – recognising that many issues relating to water management are not specific to one particular aspect of use/provision and integrate drivers and impacts originating well beyond the water industry and water science.

The paper also flags up a number of current/recent research &and innovation initiatives and some of the key questions that still need to be addressed in each area. It also suggests that city simulators and city demonstrators have a potentially valuable role to play in developing, testing and evaluating innovative ideas that could help shape the evolving relationship between water and cities as follows:

Computer simulations using cities as ‘living laboratories’  - still at a very early stage of development and application, this could help to target research resources at key issues (e.g. demand and pricing for a range of services and commodities).

Real-life community-scale city demonstrators -  could, for example, focus on smart homes/networks, robotic repair technologies, urban agriculture, sustainable drainage and floating cityscapes.

UKWRIP has put forward four recommendations for further consideration by the Foresight ‘Future of Cities’ project as the next steps in addressing the challenges that cities face:

1. Encourage the use, refinement and augmentation of the visions included in the paper, adapting them where needed, in order to engage with city authorities and help them develop their future city plans.

2. For each of the eight challenges, note the gaps highlighted as a result of synthesising past research outputs, and encourage further review and assessment of existing and planned research to see how the gaps are being addressed.

3. Promote further engagement between relevant researchers and users of urban research in order to translate research outputs into targeted outputs for users (planners, policy-makers, businesses, community organisations etc.).

4. Support the development of funding opportunities for research and innovation through the UK Research Councils, Innovate UK, business partners (e.g. water utilities and consultancies) etc., via multi-disciplinary programmes, city simulators and city demonstrators.

Click here to download Future Visions for water and cities: a thought piece