Water for our Cities: Revisiting water-sensitive urban design and planning and other frameworks

This is part 1 of a two-part blog on water for our cities

Global warming and the intense heat witnessed in India this summer and in Europe last year present a stark warning of the looming water crisis. Our large cities, considered “engines of growth,” can soon become energy and water sinks, impeding growth. 

Currently, water supply in most state capitals and large metropolitan cities of India is available for less than one hour a day (or even on alternate days). This limited supply is not equally distributed among affluent and less privileged city dwellers. 

If there is a delayed monsoon or drought (as we saw during the 1985-87 period), we will perhaps face a major humanitarian urban water crisis in our large cities for the first time.

Like land, water is a contested domain in the Global South. We have water conflicts on all levels: Inter-state, intra-state, urban-rural and intra-urban, encompassing agriculture-industry-domestic conflicts. One reason for this is the existing inequity in access and use, which has worsened with the onset of climate change.

In the last two decades, urban water management has emerged as a stormwater management priority in planned cities of Europe and Australia. Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems, Water Sensitive Urban Design and Planning, Water Sensitive Cities and Sponge Cities, Integrated Urban Water Management, etc, are some of the frameworks and concepts that have gained traction in the developed North.

India embarked on a watershed development initiative in the late 1980s as a soil and water conservation and drought-proofing initiative in rural areas. Village common lands and their development on watershed principles were hailed as a worthy last frontier of development and poverty alleviation for the marginal, landless, and rural poor.

Later, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), watershed development was included among other rural works as a legislative entitlement.

Unlike watershed development in rural areas, water conservation in urban areas only exists as projects under some national missions and at best as formalistic mapping exercises in national missions like Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation for city water balance and city water action plans. 

These efforts acknowledge the need for urban water and groundwater mapping and management, but they remain on paper.

Concepts such as Integrated Urban Water Management, Water Sensitive Urban Design and Planning (WSUDP), Water Sensitive Cities, and Sponge Cities have been mentioned in the Delhi Master Plan and in some other Indian cities, but have yet to be implemented as a state, city, or national-level programme or policy.

Perhaps the time has come to do so. But before we proceed, we need to clarify what we mean by urban water security or management, under whatever name we call it. We need to revisit WSUDP, Water Sensitive Cities, or Sponge Cities framing from a Global South city perspective.

What is WSUDP

WSUDP has been defined in various ways. One definition states, “WSUDP is a process and a philosophy that brings ‘sensitivity to water’ into urban areas, placing water at the top of the agenda. It encompasses all aspects of integrated urban water cycle management and aims to create water-sensitive cities through physical infrastructure, governance arrangements, and social engagement.”

A recent newspaper report defined WSUDP as a “concept that brings together water supply, management of stormwater, wastewater, and groundwater, and urban planning. It is about an integrated aquifer management plan along with WSUDP under the component ‘sponge cities’.” 

“It integrates the urban water cycle, water supply, wastewater, stormwater, and groundwater management with spatial and urban design. As a means to control flows and filter stormwater to remove pollutants, it offers the potential to reduce costs, infrastructure sizing, and occupied land area associated with conventional drainage approaches whilst treating runoff closer to its source. It incorporates protection of water bodies, stormwater management, recycling wastewater, and integrating policies and regulations with WSUDP,” the article further stated.

Attempts to put all these varying objectives together end up explaining WSUDP as a “set of actions or interventions” defined for varying “scales of implementation” — the city scale, neighbourhood scale, and household scale.

Nobody will deny the urgency of adopting water conservation measures in Indian cities. Any initiative taken in this direction is laudable, given the imminent water-related crisis we are facing today. The challenge, however, is in contextualising, prioritising, and defining what needs to be done under WSUDP for Indian cities to address the specific problems of their residents; what should be the goals; and what should be context-specific strategies.

Our cities are very diverse in terms of their climate and typology. Above all, there is a huge inequity reflected in the settlements in terms of their access to water supply or sanitation services.

As a result, who and how does WSUDP help? This could potentially guide the theory and practice of WSUDP or WSC framing for global south cities.

We will begin by identifying priority gaps to address for improving water security and wastewater management in a city, as we did with City Sanitation Planning a decade ago, from the perspective of the populations most affected by water insecurity, a lack of wastewater and sanitation, and stormwater management. 

We will pinpoint hotspots/problem areas in the city for groundwater, water supply, wastewater, and stormwater. We will include the social dimension of those most affected and how they can benefit from interventions implemented elsewhere in the city (for example, water conservation and recharge).

A city can then create its WSUDP or WSC Vision and Plan. This approach will shift our focus away from individual projects and detailed project reports for specific area-based interventions and towards a city-wide reimagining of water supply, wastewater, and stormwater solutions, as well as strengthened institutional capacity and coordination at the state and city levels, in order to carry out a meaningful WSUDP/WSC. 

Mitigation and adaptation measures for climate change-related water crises may then include protocols and a list of emergency measures for controlling water demand (through water rationing in a city during years of severe drought and water scarcity). The WSUDP/WSC will then be a long-term — say 20-year water security vision for a city, identifying a roadmap of interventions for every five years, including policy, institutional change, and financing required.

A combination of infrastructure re-engineering for decentralised water supply, decentralised sanitation and stormwater management, and institutional and governance reforms to manage all surface and groundwater in our cities. If this is done, it will amount to contextualising a WSUDP or WSC perspective for global south cities.

The focus of WSUDP and WSC framing is therefore most important — addressing specific target areas and specific communities that are deprived of basic levels of water supply and related issues.