Assessment of Sustainability of Urban Water Supply and Demand Management Options: A Comprehensive Approach

Abstract

A comprehensive evaluation framework that can assess a wide range of water supply and demand management policy options in terms of economic, social, environmental, risk-based, and functional performance is crucial to ascertain their level of sustainability. However, such a detailed, generic, and holistic policy evaluation framework is not found in the literature. This paper reviews studies to evaluate water supply and/or demand management options conducted during 2000–2016. Primarily, the paper reviews the evaluation criteria used by different studies for decision making given their significant difference and the importance of a comprehensive set of criteria to complete a rigorous evaluation. In addition, a comprehensive set of water supply and demand management options are not considered together for a comparative assessment to prioritise best options for a certain area and time. Further, performance of these options needs to be evaluated for a range of uncertainties arising from changes of spatial and temporal variables of the system. While this paper highlights the important aspects that need to be included in a comprehensive policy evaluation framework, available studies collectively present a rich set of information to support it.

Keywords

• sustainability
• evaluation criteria
• urban water system
• water supply
• water demand