Expert members of the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation discuss how resilient water management approaches can provide the mechanism to link, coordinate, and implement the policies and processes of Sustainable Development Goal 11 for cities.

AGWA: In 2016, the UN General Secretariat and President of the General Assembly began advocating for explicitly linking the goals and processes around sustainable development (the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or 2030 Agenda) and climate change (the UNFCCC, specifically the 2015 Paris Agreement).

A high-level event initiating this linkage took place at UN headquarters on 23–24 March 2017. Subsequently, at the UNFCCC Bonn intersession in May 2017, the signatories to the Paris Agreement agreed to address Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 2 (food security) and 11 (cities) because of their deep connections to climate change. As a result, these SDGs will be a crucial element of CoP23 held in Bonn, Germany, 6-18 November 2017.

How can these sectors be brought together across policy domains? Based on experiences from a broad set of institutions, regions, and approaches, we suggest that resilient water management approaches can, and should be, the mechanism to link, coordinate, and implement the policies and processes of SDG 11 and of the urban aspects of climate change.

Moreover, we suggest that cities, which by 2040 will support nearly 60% of the world’s population, can be one of the most effective areas for developing climate mitigation, adaptation, and sustainability strategies. Finally, we argue that by focusing on urban resilience, we have a greater chance of meeting SDGs 2, 11, and 13, and successfully countering the more extreme effects of a changing planet.

Cities: where climate and development decisions for resilience happen

Cities are self-aware, dynamic, and have powerful histories and economies. Subsequently, they are a key unit of social and economic organisation and play a critical role in climate mitigation, adaptation and sustainability. Yet, for a city to thrive under both short-term weather-related shocks and long-term stresses driven by shifts in climate, economic, and social change, it must display resilience.

Three critical resilience characteristics are persistence (the ability to “return to normal” by effective coping with negative impacts or rapid-onset disasters), adaption (the ability to adapt to new norms effectively), and transformation (the ability to shift to accommodate radical shifts beyond the tipping point in environmental or economic conditions). These characteristics are broadly consistent with emerging definitions from ecological sciences1-3 and from disaster risk reduction (DRR) frameworks.4

Many cities, indeed most human systems, do not have these characteristics; most institutions optimize human progress relative to past patterns and historic norms rather than anticipating novel and uncertain events. While ingenuity has repeatedly demonstrated that humans can persist, adapt and transform, efforts must be urgently undertaken to cultivate these capabilities our planet changes quicken and become more extreme.

Yet, transitions to new states and approaches are far from simple. As economic and political epicenters, cities drive resource use and extend their footprint across large areas into coastal, estuarine, and rural landscapes and across watersheds and energy grids. Water, energy, and food demands are interdependent and are most acutely concentrated in cities due to their population density and concentrated resource consumption.

Cities are a preeminent concern regarding water-related disasters

Current trends in urban growth and resource intensification are expected to accelerate over the coming decades, especially in east and southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. Given the concentration of populations and economies, cities are a preeminent concern regarding water-related disasters — coastal storms, saltwater intrusion, intense precipitation events, flooding, droughts, and changes in water availability, timing, and quality.

Such extreme events exacerbate the stresses on surrounding regions that provide the vital resource base for urban security – food, energy, labor, capital, and, perhaps most critically, water. Sudden shocks, like natural disasters, deeply impact cities’ ability to adequately treat and transport drinking water and wastewater in and out of urban areas. Coastal and delta cities such as Lagos, Shanghai, and London are even more exposed and sensitive to such impacts. Current projections indicate such disasters will increase in frequency and intensity, especially for low-lying delta regions, risks that are often exacerbated by subsidence (e.g., from groundwater pumping).5

These challenges present barriers to creating urban resilience, yet they display a common theme: the promise of water to bind together coherent actions. These challenges make clear that future climate and development decisions must consider water to achieve the goals enshrined in SDG 11 and the Paris Agreement.

Water flows towards cities

A fundamental consideration in building urban resilience is that regions whose water is impacted by cities are rarely confined to a single hydrological basin, whether surface or groundwater. Instead, urban water decisions normally impact, and are impacted by, large spatial scales that intersect, merge, and override several hydrological basins. Thus, cities depend on a broad landscape for the various needs from energy and industrial use to residents’ food, drinking water, and sanitation. How cities decide on storm- and waste-water regulations, parks and infrastructure creation and maintenance, and fluvial transportation and construction impacts this broader landscape.

This confluence of sectors around a single resource (water) is reflected in the large set of norms, regulations, organisations, and policies in different sectors. These commonly overlap and, in many cases, provide contradictory incentives and obstacles for efficient urban water management. When decisions are reached by examining only a single sector or a fraction of the impacted water landscape, the prospects for resilience and sustainability are reduced. Thus, the role of cities in large-scale water management and water security decisions is especially important and provides a micro-example of what countries do regarding water management and water security on a national level.

Optimism and opportunities: can water drive urban resilience?

The authors of this piece represent a broad set of the water community interested in supporting the efforts and goals of building resilient cities through effective, water-aware sustainable development and climate policies. Cities and their broader landscape of influence cannot achieve or maintain long-term resilience without coherent and credible water management solutions that span sectoral, institutional, hydrological, and administrative boundaries. Thus, national, local, and global policies and financing for urban sustainability and resilience must be informed by sound water knowledge and practices. Furthermore, urban water management must be informed by water-user sectors (i.e., environment, energy, transport, industry, and health).

A new set of forces is emerging at global and national levels to redefine urban sustainability, and as part of this work both global and national policy groups are working to ensure that Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement become mutually reinforcing and convergent. These forces represent exciting opportunities to resolve both longstanding and emerging challenges.

Cities can demonstrate the central role of water in resolving the complexities of development in the modern era. SDG 11 is now being presented through the UNFCCC by a group of national, NGO, private sector, think tanks, and foundations as a vehicle to link global sustainable development and climate policies. Water can help provide coherence across urban sectors and development aspirations, integrate holistic solutions, and serve all stakeholders.

In Part II, we provide a series of recommendations and possible pathways for achieving these outcomes effectively.

About the authors:

• John H. Matthews - coordinator for AGWA since 2010 and is a Courtesy Professor at Oregon State University and Senior Fellow at the Colorado Water Institute at Colorado State University
• Maggie White - manager of international policies at SIWI and AGWA co-chair
• Aziza Akhmouch - Acting Head of the OECD Cities, Urban Policies, and Sustainable Development Division
• Safaa Bahije - Head of the State Secretariat for Water in Morocco
• Fred Boltz - previously Managing Director of Ecosystems at The Rockefeller Foundation
• Alexa Bruce -  Water Engineer at Arup and Environment Lead for the UK National Infrastructure Commission
• Paul Fleming - Manager of the Climate Resiliency Group for Seattle Public Utilities
• Mark Fletcher - Director and Global Water Business Leader at Arup
• Torgny Holmgren is SIWI’s Executive Director
• Martin Kerres - currently working at the Sustainable Water Policy team at GIZ, advising the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development on water policy issue.
• Daniela Krahl -Senior Policy Officer Water, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
• Franz-Birger Marré - Head of Division (Water, Urban Development, Transport) German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
• Diego J. Rodriguez - Senior Water Resources Management Specialist for The World Bank Group where he has worked for the last decade
• Cees van de Guchte - Director of Climate Adaptation & Risk Management at Deltares
• Marion van Schaik -  Senior Policy Adviser Water and Environment in the Inclusive Green Growth Department at the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Niels Vlaanderen - Coordinator of International Water Affairs at the Netherlands’ Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment

This  article first appeared on the Global Water Forum which was established in 2010 as an initiative of the UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance at the Australian National University. In 2016, it expanded to partner with Oxford University.

About AGWA: the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation is an international network to develop, synergize, and promote the emerging best practices and policies for resilient water resources management.