Integrated water management (IWM) should be at the heart of the design and build process. But it isn’t, despite various incentives and policies encouraging projects to take this approach. Why is this? Here’s our take on the barriers to creating an integrated water design solution. And 3 key actions that would dramatically change the way urban water is managed.
What is integrated water management?
Integrated water management is a term in the water industry that has been popular for over 10 years. It captures a philosophy or approach to managing water in cities.
IWM is essentially how to be a whole lot smarter with water management, and usually used in an urban context. It covers how you can:
be water efficient
save potable water
capture more rainwater and stormwater
prevent flooding
reduce and recycle wastewater
use more water in the landscape for cooling and biodiversity benefits.
Who needs an integrated water management strategy?
It is common for local governments, precincts, commercial buildings, schools and houses to ask us to develop an IWM strategy. Specifically, these strategies outline what integrated water options are available and what are the costs and benefits of considering IWM for a certain place or building.
Every new building and every new and retrofitted suburb should put integrated water management at the heart of the design and build process.
But they don’t.
Despite the range of incentives and policies encouraging residents, developers and local governments to build these projects, IWM often gets left out. So, why is that?
Barriers to creating an integrated water design solution
There are several obstacles to creating an integrated water design solution. But each time someone decides to just pipe water in or out of a building or precinct without an IWM approach, there is a huge amount of missed opportunities. The barriers to designing and building a IWM project, in our opinion, are:
1. There is no market for IWM
This is the fundamental problem. There is no market that enables IWM funding and investment of projects, and no clear mechanism to illustrate that these projects will deliver a positive net present value (NPV). There needs to be a market mechanism to captures all the costs, benefits and investments that an IWM project delivers, that a council, water utility, developer or household could trade in.
Who wants to fund an investment to deliver better physical and mental health linked to greener open space? The health department? A park user?
So many of the benefits are intangible, or realised over a long term by an agency not explicitly in the water management business, and we don’t have a way to link them together, or have a single market, to determine the return on this type of investment.
2. Institutions that manage urban water are not integrated
The urban water system is made up of lots of different networks; a stormwater network, an open space network, a road network, a mains water network, wastewater network, and a recycled water network.
And then on top of the centrally managed networks, we have distributed systems including individual rainwater tanks, greywater systems and water efficient appliances.
No single agency has control of all the assets, maintenance, costs and benefits.
Yes, all of these groups collaborate and attend IWM forums and are willing to work together. But they have different responsibilities, objectives and capabilities.
3. There is no one easy way to assess IWM projects
We’ve done several projects developing metrics for IWM projects or strategies. It is complicated (trust us)!
The Victorian Government has a framework that includes 28 indicators. Not every project will deliver on all 28 of these indicators and objectives. But it is hard to simply quantify the purpose and benefits of a project (and prioritise them) when you have so many ways to track what an IWM project delivers.
We have some thoughts on how to simplify and focus on one or two indicators when describing solutions to these problems.
4. Potable water is cheap
While we have several indicators and objectives of IWM, they often come back to saving potable water and comparing how this project can supply water for local use, to purchasing the same amount of potable water. Across Australia, it is very hard to compete with the price of potable water.
We would argue you should not compare them as there are so many other benefits to IWM. It really is comparing apples and oranges. Saving potable water is one of the few operational savings that can be measured and hence is a go to.
5. Benefits are long term, intangible, and not easily quantified
IWM projects deliver value not necessarily today, but in decades time. And if the benefits are intangible, it is difficult to find a way to justify funding an IWM project.
6. Maintenance is poorly understood or just ignored
Maintenance is the poor cousin for virtually all utilities and cities. It is often ignored once a project is commissioned, and thus we lack operational case studies to demonstrate why IWM should be adopted and accelerated, when they stop working due to a lack of maintenance.
7. There is no overwhelming community drive for IWM, particularly when we are not in a drought
The community is always very supportive of an IWM project when consulted. But there is no active request for change towards more IWM.
And we know that investment and change occur when there is a loud community voice advocating for it. There has been significant flooding through this La Niña period (which is on the verge of shifting).
8. Trust in distributed systems is still low
IWM projects often relate to delivering smaller distributed assets. And when the main architects of IWM projects are water utilities, they don’t tend to trust smaller distributed assets (even if they are more resilient).
We’re definitely not the first to recognise that there are issues in delivering integrated water management projects. The Productivity Commission did a thorough review of IWM projects and issues in 2020, and published a report on the subject. They found similar issues but presented a regulatory perspective on the matter.
Three actions to change how urban water is managed
In our view, there are three key actions that would dramatically change the way urban water is managed. And in course, this would rapidly increase the possibility of delivering IWM projects.
Establish a single metric to quantify IWM. In some of our past projects, we have advocated for either a ‘permeability target’ or a ‘net water positive balance’ indicator. Get in touch if you want to learn more about these.
Create a market price for IWM.
Institutional reform to see one agency oversee the prioritisation, design, delivery and maintenance of these projects.
The future of IWM
IWM is a new way of thinking that cuts across water planning, engineering design, maintenance, town planning, strategic planning, urban ecology, community engagement and urban design.
It’s critical we do this. But as an industry we have quite a way to go before it happens seamlessly.
Expert in all things water
As an innovative engineering design consultancy, with a key focus on water, we are specialists in IWM strategies and projects.
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