Water Sensitive Cities Index

The vision of a water sensitive city has emerged as an aspirational concept where water is managed in a way that meets a city’s water needs while also supporting a city’s urban liveability, sustainability, resilience and productivity. While many places are beginning to articulate aspirations represented by the water sensitive city concept, becoming a water sensitive city requires a significant departure from the conventional mode of water servicing. Cities need to transition from a large-scale, centralised infrastructure approach to a more decentralised system that integrates water, the built and natural environments, and communities.

The   Urban Water Transitions Framework identifies six distinct developmental states that cities may move through on their path towards increased water sensitivity. A city’s journey through these states is not linear and may involve leapfrogging, a concept that allows developing cities to learn from more developed cities in order to accelerate their transition to more desirable states.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Developing a shared perspective of water today in relation to future water sensitive aspirations is critical in establishing the understanding, motivation and capacity amongst stakeholders to drive their water sensitive city transition. The CRCWSC has developed the Water Sensitive Cities Index (WSC Index) tool to guide coordinated action amongst stakeholders and to assist cities in navigating their water sensitive city journey.

The WSC Index is a tool designed to benchmark a city’s current performance against seven goals of a water sensitive city. These goals include both biophysical and socio-institutional goals, which organised 34 corresponding indicators.

Each of the 34 indicators are scored on a 1-5 rating scale in a collaborative workshop process. The data is then entered into a web-based platform that can filter the results according to what is most useful for the user.