Urbanisation and Future Smart Cities: Challenges of Water and Sanitation Services

Abstract

In an increasingly urbanised world, substantial transformations in population distribution seem inevitable, although perhaps not as rapid as often predicted. At the city level, local governments play perhaps the most important role in ensuring that urbanisation is inclusive and that its benefits are shared. Yet, a very large proportion of the population of many cities in Africa lacks access to adequate water and sanitation services. This increases their vulnerability to hazards, both environmental and socioeconomic. Integrating broader water resources management, the design of water infrastructures and the operation of water services into urban planning is becoming increasingly important and highlights the imperative of addressing the key urban-rural water linkages. Making the best use of innovative technical and non-technical solutions (including new technologies and techniques, business models, stakeholder engagement, green infrastructure, regulatory arrangements) to respond to the above challenges at least cost is key to ensuring adequate levels of water security and water services. Cities are central nodes in the development of human geographies. They are spaces where the flows of goods, capital and people converge. They rely on the management and good governance of public infrastructure for sustainable growth and stability and to safeguard their populations against natural and man-made disasters. City governments need to nurture and expand their infrastructure ecosystems. Developing economies will struggle to provide housing, infrastructure, transportation, energy, employment and basic services. In Africa in particular, populations crammed into informal settlements and low-cost housing are most vulnerable to the effects of natural disasters, conflict and climate change. City governments need a forward-looking systematic approach to urban growth in order to secure sustainable socio-economic development and ensure resilience in the face of disaster. This chapter argues that population growth, commercialisation and industrialisation place further pressures on authorities to meet growing demand in water-scarce regions. Smarter, more effective management of water in relation to the urban water cycle can contribute to more effective water services planning and water demand management. Municipalities are the custodians of community infrastructure. The maintenance and management of physical infrastructure assets, infrastructure asset management, are therefore the cornerstone of delivering public goods and services. The municipalities whose solutions are resilient and scalable have the most opportunities to become smart cities.