Urban Water Governance: The Governance Capacity Assessment Framework

Abstract

The convergence of climate change and urbanization pose one of the biggest challenges for the coming decades and century. Currently half of the world’s population lives in cities and this number will grow significantly in the future, especially in developing regions. This exerts great stress on the local finite resources, including fresh water. Hence, sustainable Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is crucial for sustainable urban growth, but rarely achieved in cities at present. The water crisis is essentially a crisis of governance. This study has yielded a Governance Capacity Assessment Framework (GCAF). An extensive literature study in various fields has identified the most relevant conditions necessary to develop the governance capacity to deal with the wicked water issues. It aims to be comprehensive, consistent and comparable. It pioneers in bridging theory to practice through the empirical study of urban water governance.