Adaptive Water Management

This book explores a new framework of Adaptive Water Management (AWM) for evaluating existing urban water management. It highlights the need to adopt multidisciplinary approaches in AWM while providing an in-depth understanding of institutional interactions amongst different water management elements. The key characteristics of AWM (i.e., polycentric governance, institutional flexibility and public participation) are investigated and described through a review of the relevant literature. Additionally the book presents case studies undertaken in selected developing country cities to investigate the potential gaps between the current water management approaches and possible adaptation of Adaptive Water Management (AWM). The key elements of AWM performance are (re)structured and transformed to decision support systems such as multi criteria decision models and/or systems dynamic models in order to facilitate quantification and visualization of the influence of qualitative and quantitative elements, which are derived from the case studies involved with water consumers and water companies. Finally the book describes how the concept of AWM, along with structuring suitable decision support systems, can be developed and applied to developing-country cities with an established water management structure similar to those investigated in the case studies while simultaneously promoting technical and institutional performance. The findings outline that despite the lack of adaptability in current water management practices there are positive attitudes towards adaptability among water professionals and the public in developing countries.