Capturing different perspectives on integrated urban water management issues

Abstract

Integrated urban water management (IUWM) involves a complex web of organisational interactions. Each organisation has its own priorities and unique perceptions of problems. This study offers two contributions to the research on this topic. First, 14 major issues in IUWM infrastructure planning were determined through industry consultation and a literature review. Second, an industry survey investigated which issues were most important to which organisations, and results show significant differences across organisational types. While there were significant differences between organisational types, the survey found that across the entire sector, most issues were ranked similarly in importance with two clear outliers, collaboration and integration being clearly the most important and post-evaluation the least. If the industry can develop an understanding of these differences in organisational perspectives, it will provide a starting point for better collaboration in integrated water infrastructure planning processes.