SUSTAINABILITY AND THE URBAN WATER SYSTEM

BY PETER NEWMAN
Professor of City Policy and Director, Institute for Science and Technology Policy, Murdoch University

INTRODUCTION
THE WALKING, TRANSIT AND AUTO CITY URBAN FORMS AND WATER MANAGEMENT
WATER AND THE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE CITY
NEW URBAN WATER TECHNOLOGIES AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS.
WHY IS LOCAL SCALE BEST FOR SUSTAINABILITY?
SIGNS OF SUSTAINABLE WATER SYSTEMS
CONCLUSION
Questions
References

INTRODUCTION

In the same way that sustainability is forging a new paradigm for transportation planning it is beginning to change the way that people manage the water cycle in cities.

The same basic processes are causing the rethink:

• the need to take the environment seriously, and to integrate this with economic considerations;

• the importance of understanding how infrastructure changes land use;

• the need for more holistic approaches that see the city as an ecosystem; and

• the critical role of local community processes in future management.

The approach set out below looks at the total water cycle and begins with an historical perspective on how cities have managed the water cycle. To do this requires a perspective on how transportation infrastructure and water infrastructure are linked to urban form.

THE WALKING, TRANSIT AND AUTO CITY URBAN FORMS AND WATER MANAGEMENT

The first cities were formed near water in order for them to function as ‘settlements’. Much of today's urban water management and technology was developed in the 19th century. In the walking-based pre-19th century cities water was managed with a localised supply and treatment, i.e. local wells and small, household toilets that were either just a hole in the ground or a container which was collected and taken to nearby fields for agricultural use. Some examples of walking-based pre-19th century cities are shown below.

Photo 1. The first settlements, like this Indian city in Arizona, were designed to
modify the climate and make use of nearby resources like water.

Photo 2. Inside the buildings the temperate is very cool.

Photo 3. This ancient settlement was grouped around its water storage tank.

Photo 4. This medieval walking city had ground water wells for water supply.
Waste was taken to surrounding fields.

Photo 5. Walking cities had very local water systems.

Photo 6. This medieval city is based on a river.

Photo 7. The close link between traditional cities and their agriculture is seen in this Iranian town.

Photo 8. The 18 to 19 century cities had many horses.
The wastes from these animals could be easily recycled into market gardens.
Paris was an exporter of food in the 19^th century.

Such small Walking Cities were able to manage quite adequately without the need for more extensive water supply, sewage collection or treatment. Rainwater was collected frequently and stored in cisterns and drainage was a part of street and alley design.

Photo 9. Walking cities can be very green cities, even today (Munich).

However, when the industrial revolution came and cities grew rapidly it was no longer feasible to manage cities in this way. The much greater quantities of water needed and the associated increase in sewage, as well as the increased stormwater from the larger urban area, generated the need for new technology, new management processes and new urban form.

Photo 10. The industrial city had many new sources of waste that it could not manage.
Over crowding during the industrial revolution also raised problems of how to deal with excessive human wastes.

Photo 11. The industrial city had to be rebuilt - and it was.

Box 1. These movements from 19^th century cities led to its transformation.

Photo 12. The discovery of bacteria helped people to confirm ancient
beliefs that water supply and sewage must be separated.

Photo 13. 19^th century cities built very large sewage systems
- big pipes that carried the waste out of the city.

The Transit City (Figire 2) not only provided a new way to solve the problem of where people lived and worked and moved around, but it provided a way to manage water as set out in Figure 2. As well as rail tracks to solve the transport problems, the city engineers found other linear technologies to solve their water problems. They developed the "big pipes" engineering approach - both for bringing water in and for removing waste water. This technology was closely associated with the particular form of the Transit City - the dense linear corridors along which linear infrastructure could easily fit.

Figure 1. 19th century solutions to urban water management

Figure 2. The pipes were like the rail systems - directing the city into corridors.

The highly centralised kind of city in urban form gave rise to a highly centralised management approach. This 'big pipes', centralised approach where the engineer applies the same technique to every city and is not only the expert but is the source of power, we now describe as 'modernist'. Even the water courses of cities were straightened out and 'disciplined' into pipe-like drains.

Photo 14. The 19^th century transit city followed its trams and trains, but still needed its rivers to dispose of waste.

With the twentieth century and the automobile, cities have increased considerably in population size and have sprawled extensively in area and in every direction with low density development.

Photo 15. Henry Ford's mass production of cars completely changed cities like
Detroit pictured here with its transit based architecture.

Photo 16. The city sprawled and filled in all of the spaces between the corridors.
Sewage and water followed where it could.

Photo 17. The central area became dominated by cars and hence bitumen.

Photo 18. Long freeways and the channelling of water into drains went together.
This photograph shows the Los Angeles river.

Photo 19. The Los Angeles river is a concrete drain.

Photo 20. Freeways and concrete drains.

Along with problems of automobile dependence, there are now problems with water management in such Auto Cities. This is because the large sprawling city is approaching new limits in the capacity of surrounding water supplies and receiving waters, there is new awareness of the ecological value of natural water systems and there are new constraints on the economics of providing the infrastructure for the 19th century "big pipes" - oriented solutions (CEPA, 1993) - see Box 2.

Photo 21. A large scale sewage treatment works typical of the 19^th century and still operating.

Photo 22. Effluent disposal usually causes nutrient problems (eutrophication).

Photo 23. Even coastal waters can become eutrophic from urban sewage.

Photo 24. Storm water drains channel urban water into creeks and drains.

Photo 25. Eutrophication caused by storm water.

Photo 26. These wetlands are teeming with blue green algae due to the addition of storm water enriched with nutrients.

Photo 27. Wetlands are now wanted for their own ecological values.

WATER AND THE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE CITY

The sustainable Future City needs to provide not only a more sustainable transportation system but also an integrated solution to the need for a more socially sensitive, economically efficient and environmentally responsible urban water management system.

The processes for rebuilding the urban form of the Auto City are well underway in some cities and are based on the reduction of automobile dependence, as set out in previous chapters. They are summarised in Box 3.

The goals for sustainability as far as water management are concerned are set out in Box 4.

The fundamental goal is to restore the natural systems around and within a city so that they have more of their ecological integrity. Removing all 'big pipe' ocean and river outfalls presupposes that another means of treatment and recycling is found (discussed further below). Ecological integrity also means that urban creeks can be restored to provide a more diverse habitat than when they were turned into concrete stormwater drains. The process can be done in ways that improve flood control as the water flow is slowed down and a lot of water is enabled to recharge aquifers rather than being channelled away as quickly as possible (see Register, 1987; Hough, 1984).

It is also possible, and indeed it is necessary, to try and build more soft surfaces into the city so that storm water is able to be absorbed rather than being forced into pipes. This means less bitumen, which in a city like Los Angeles is around 30 to 40% and in some places can be more than 60% of the land area, due to the excessive parking and road area requirements of a highly automobile dependent city. Berry et al (1974) found that the more automobile dependent low density cities in the US had the largest storm water pollution problems.

Photo 28. Light rail tracks, like this one in Zurich, can be grassed so
that there is more 'soft surface' and less storm water run-off.

Photo 29. Streets can be traffic calmed and made more water sensetive.

The goals in Box 5 go against much traditional civil and sanitary engineering practice, particularly making outfalls redundant. They also challenge most of the highly centralised water management systems that have grown up with the old modernist paradigm. It will require new technology and new urban management processes in order create a more water-sustainable Future City.

Photo 30. The sustainable city of the future needs to reclaim its land use in
a way that is not car dependent and at the same time enables more water sensetive design.

NEW URBAN WATER TECHNOLOGIES AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS.

The kind of urban water technologies and urban water management processes that are being developed with potential to solve the problems of the Future City within the new ecological and economic constraints, are set out in Figure 3.

Figure 3. New urban water technologies

Revising technical approaches to water would entail a variety of interlinking technologies that mean less water is needed, rain and storm water is harvested and waste water is recycled (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Interacting techniques for reducing "big pipes in - big pipes out" water management at local levels.

In recent years, particularly in dry region cities like Australia, there has been a concerted effort to develop a whole range of water conserving technologies, mainly at the domestic level. For example, the low flow tap fittings and the new ultra low flush 6/3 liter dual flush toilet, all make a contribution to sustainability. Similarly, outside the home and in public open space, modern irrigation technology now has electronic control systems and low water approaches to private and public open space (Hill and Nicholson, 1989).

Photo 31. Individuals can do limited but useful recycling of urban water.

All these technologies add evidence to the progress towards reducing water supply demands. However, as with automobile dependence, the water issue is not just about more efficient technology, but about creating an urban system that has inherently less requirement for water. This means land use patterns with less need for water and greater reuse of stormwater and wastewater locally (Clark, 1990; Houser et al, 1992).

At the same time we need to recognise that the continual flux of nutrients being transferred (through the water system) from land to natural water systems is not sustainable. For the sake of nutrient conservation, these cycles must be closed and the production of useful biomass from these wastewater resources must be a minimum target. Similarly, the non-degradable toxic substances in these fluxes must be prevented from entering food chains.

With urban stormwater, the traditional emphasis has been focused around the "conveyance" approach, with the primary objective of flood protection. In recent years, as a result of the increasing recognition of the environmental impact of urban stormwater on receiving water bodies, there has been a marked shift towards the so-called "storage approach", where retention, detention and recharge are the design focus, along with other objectives like protection and enhancement of the social and ecological values of urban water environments. It has become increasingly apparent that a whole range of "best management practices" are available for storm water quality enhancement through our urban catchments which involve simple biological processes rather than "end of pipe" technologies. If directed into local greening projects, they can become a part of the rejuvenation of parts of a city.

Photo 32. 'Better Cities' projects featured more water sensitive developments
like this storm water based open space in Adelaide.

Photo 33. Storm water can be part of open space (False Creek, Vancouver).

Photo 34. The East Perth redevelopment was able to reclaim an industrial drain as a clean urban creek.

The next step then is whether this shift in attitude to retaining stormwater can be directed towards seeing stormwater as a resource for various uses. Argue (1995) has demonstrated in Australia how to collect stormwater in simple gravel 'pipes' that direct the water to a series of local aquifer recharge points. The water is then able to be used in summer for park watering. Rainwater tanks are gaining popularity with the public. Both the Melbourne Water Review and the Perth Water Future studies have revealed the public's perceived preference in this area and most urban ecology projects in Denmark (end of this chapter) involve them. Research is ongoing into developing household systems for both potable and non-potable uses (see Waller, 1989). However, for uses that require bulk storage, it appears to be more economical to provide storage through urban wetlands or aquifers.

Photo 35. This document reflects the change in value associated to storm water.

Photo 36. The change of values has its limits!

The most notable example of water harvesting is in the investigations for the Multi Function Polis in Adelaide (a 21st century ecotechnology city) where the potential to harvest up to 23,000 megaliters of runoff per year is being implemented. The water will be directed (along with treated effluent) to parks and gardens, local industry, household gardens and toilet use.

The design and redesign process of our cities becomes one of truly integrating water into the urban design and land use allocation process, not just seeing it as an isolated engineering process. Some of the important elements of the new approach will therefore be developing local water harvesting techniques and groundwater recharge and abstraction systems in combination with point-of-entry and point-of-use approaches to water quality treatment.

In the wastewater area, a whole range of technologies have emerged to manage wastewater at the local level. At the on-site scale these are:

• Modified septic tank systems with soil amendment around a leach drain to neutralise nutrient contamination;

• Aerobic treatment systems, that treat to tertiary level at the small scale;

• Composting toilets (the potential of this technology in cities should not be dismissed as urban agriculture, especially Permaculture grows in popularity - see Box 5.9).

At the community-scale all of the traditional primary, secondary and tertiary processes are available at small scales, however, it is more likely that combinations of emerging high-tech and low-tech solutions will out compete these older approaches. High technology approaches using filtration systems (developed from kidney dialysis), biogas technologies and UV disinfection, all seem to work best at smaller scale. Low technology approaches that use wetland systems or solar aquatic systems (aquaculture, hydroponics, condensed glasshouses) are also all small scale (see Saldinger, 1992).

The technology is available, therefore the challenge is not simply a water engineering problem, but more a question of the integration of land and water planning under the new sustainability goals into a new set of urban management processes.

(b) New urban water management processes.

The techniques for sustainable urban water management which have arisen in the Australian context have been labelled: 'Urban Integrated Catchment Management', 'Total Water Cycle Management', 'Water Sensitive Design', and 'Localised Community Water Management Processes'. Each one will be briefly outlined.

Urban Integrated Catchment Management

The idea of land and water planning integration has its origins in natural resource management issues in rural areas to integrate agency programs and community aspirations. This process is well underway in most water management agencies around the world. In New Zealand water catchment boundaries were used as the basis for re-establishing local government boundaries.

But Integrated Catchment Management has not been extended much to urban areas until recent times when urban communities have begun to demand more say in the way water management issues are resolved, particularly with creeks and rivers subject to pollution and drainage (Mouritz, 1997). The community desire to re-establish a sense of place with their local environment means that urban water features can no longer be regarded as places of low value or convenient discharge points for urban wastes. Water is often the frontline for how citizens relate to local sustainability issues.

Photo 37. Cities can be divided into local water management areas.

There are now legally established urban Catchment Management Districts operating in Adelaide with the ability to raise money via a rating scheme and the responsibility to integrate land and water planning along their urban water courses. This involves local government and community representatives, as well as state government water management professionals.

Total Water Cycle Management

This term has become increasingly used in water resource management and service provision circles. It aims to emphasise the integration of land use planning with the management of water supply, wastewater collection, treatment and disposal and stormwater drainage services. Total Water Cycle Management therefore provides a framework for optimum management of the water use cycle while recognising the environmental constraints and potential conflict with other aspects of water resource management. Many urban water agencies have adopted this framework in their assessments of options within environmentally sensitive urban expansion areas (eg Dodds et al, 1991). There is however a long way to go before truly integrated total water cycle options are commonplace.

Water Sensitive Design

The term water sensitive design (WSD) was coined in Perth, Western Australia, where water is one of the key issues in city development. The aim was to devise and illustrate an approach to urban planning and design which incorporated water resource and related environmental management into the planning process at various scales and time horizons (WSUDRG, 1990). The term "sensitive" was selected to capture the elements of water management concern, water balance, water quality and water consumption in one phrase.

Photo 38. Whole town planning systems need to be developed.

Photo 39. The Sydney Olympic Village is water sensitive and recycles all of its waste.

The WSD initiative has similar expressions in other cities, but in Perth it has produced a planning policy framework and comprehensive guidelines consisting of some eighty "Best Planning Practices and Best Management Practices". Some of these are set out in Table 1.

Table 1. Water sensitive urban design objectives

Each of the new water technologies outlined above, and all of the other urban water management processes, require a largely decentralised water management system to be developed. The reasons for this are important for a more general discussion on sustainability and cities and thus they are set out in some detail below.

WHY IS LOCAL SCALE BEST FOR SUSTAINABILITY?

The reasons for local scale management options for sustainable water systems in cities appear to lie in the nature of new water technology, the nature of ecosystems, the nature of water/land integration in cities, the economics of large city forms, and the nature of post-modern management systems.

The nature of the technology

Small-scale systems like those outlined above (Saldinger, 1992) actually work better at the small-scale level. The new technologies for sewage treatment are not very economic for individual households, nor for traditional large sewerage works, but are best for the 50 to 500 household scale. This is probably associated with the thermodynamics of removing nutrients at the tertiary level of treatment which is essential for all new wastewater systems.

The nature of ecosystems

Integrated stormwater management, water sensitive design and the recycling of water all require detailed knowledge of local natural processes. This intimate knowledge of local soils, slopes, creeks, wetlands — as well as knowledge of the urban aspects of nature, i.e. open space, community gardens, street trees — all are ideally suited to the role of a local environmental scientist working in a local authority or local community-based organisation with responsibility for local urban water management. The reality is that nature is diverse and each urban catchment would have different requirements within the broad goals of a city's overall management strategy.

The nature of integrated water management

It is not possible to manage the full water system incorporating water supply, stormwater, sewage treatment and recycling unless it is integrated at the point where water is needed (Waller, 1989). This requires a more localised management system as well as changes at the consumer end.

The economics of large city forms

As outlined above, Auto Cities have grown outwards rapidly into thinly spread suburbs rather than small compact Walking Cities or corridor shaped Transit Cities. Thus the 19th century solution of 'big pipes' now means a lot of big pipes. The efficiency of this approach changed once the form of the city changed. For a typical Australian Auto City up to 85% of the capital investment is in the provision of the pipes and less than 15 to 20% is in water treatment (Thomas and McLeod, 1992). Thus if ways can be found to save on the big pipes there is theoretically a lot more money available to do advanced treatment to meet the goals of sustainability. There should in fact, if a total approach is taken, be plenty of scope for saving money. Mouritz (1997) has found that this is indeed possible in a case study approach to more sustainable water development. The most savings will be found as infrastructure wears out and is slowly replaced by this new approach or as new urban villages and sub-centres are built in the reurbanisation process.

The nature of post-Fordist management systems

New management systems are showing that Fordist style (production line), command and control, top down management systems are not as productive or as humanly fulfilling as systems that are based on 'flexible specialisation' bottom-up processes (Piore and Sabel, 1984; Mathews, 1994). This emphasis on participation, that those closest to the final product are best able to deliver what the customer is looking for, can be applied to the water industry.

The market for the water cycle is a service at the household or industry level, but few would suggest that each household or industry should be the basis of urban water management. Individual rainwater tanks and septic tanks can of course be quite acceptable in isolated situations, but in a city it is rarely sufficient due to the need for better use of the land required, the efficiency opportunities for a larger scale of operation and the potential environmental and health problems of each household having autonomy. Cities don't work best by denying the opportunities of shared management of resources. Many examples of local shared facilities are given in the urban ecology section.

The social imperative in management systems is to find the right scale at which to operate. There is a growing awareness in studies on cities that the "local milieux" (Willoughby, 1994) is what makes it function as a source of innovation. For centuries communities have been seen as a basic unit for management of many local resources. As water is a natural resource it makes sense to try and find a scale that incorporates both the community scale and the scale at which nature is working.

The community-based approach to solving problems is developing a new coherence in today's political climate. The collapse of Communism has shown that heavy-handed authoritarian states cannot be expected to deliver basic human needs, rights and a good quality of life. At the same time, there is awareness that capitalism based on a market left to itself cannot deliver all this either, especially in the social and environmental area. Thus there is a quest to find an appropriate form of social democratic system that can fulfil economic, social and environmental goals. There is growing support for communitarian approaches that suggest ethical frameworks are most meaningful when developed at the community scale, rather than from individual preference alone or from national systems (expanded in the next two chapters). These approaches suggest that both the individual and the State find meaningful roles only when an adequate role is given to the community.

The demand for community-based solutions and participation is also now very evident (Stocker and Pollard, 1994; Sirolli, 1995; Sarkissian and Walsh, 1996). The question of how this is worked out in terms of private or public sector involvement is examined in Box 7.

There will be other public policy issues to be worked through on these sustainability matters. Implementation of the more innovative elements of such design, eg small scale wastewater treatment and recycling systems, plus the community scale second class water systems, will require social acceptance and institutional changes that are quite challenging. The question of social acceptance is one that requires further examination, however, there is a growing evidence that the community is willing to become involved in these types of reforms. The institutional implications are probably more difficult to resolve as they involve the need for new agreements to be formulated between the various agencies responsible for regulating and administering policy in these areas, including Planning Departments, Water Authorities, Health Departments and Local Government, to name just a few of the key stakeholders. Such integration is a common feature of post-modern management systems rather than the modernist simple engineering approaches we have become familiar with in most Western cities and this issue is pursued further in the next chapter.

SIGNS OF SUSTAINABLE WATER SYSTEMS

All of the above technologies and management approaches are actively being examined by urban water authorities facing increasing pressure to be more economically efficient and environmentally effective (Niemczynowicz, 1992). It is particularly evident in Australia, the driest continent in the world (AIUS, 1991; Clark, 1990 and DITAC, 1992).

Water management in Australia is rapidly moving in the direction of a more sustainable model. Whilst it will be some time before fully integrated systems are widespread and the existing ocean outfalls are made redundant, there are plans underway in this direction. The push for new approaches to urban water management is coming as much from the enormous difficulties in funding the “big pipes” as it is from the environmental problems due to water management in the city. Thus like the problem of automobile dependence, the need for new approaches to urban water is a true challenge of sustainability.

The Australian government's Better Cities program has been able to contain many innovative elements of water management in its demonstrations of sustainability across the country. Better Cities funded projects involved the redevelopment of urban areas incorporating water conservation technology and water sensitive design, small scale water treatment to tertiary level at a community-based greening centre, several aquifer recharge schemes for stormwater involving wetland systems, and a number of urban creek regeneration projects as part of dense, mixed use, reurbanisation (Diver and Newman, 1996).

Thus it is possible to see the start of sustainability in urban water systems and to imagine how they could easily catch on in the Auto City and rapidly become an everyday part of urban management in the Future City. The changes in water management with the form of the city are summarised in Box *.

CONCLUSION

Sustainability and water in cities involves both new urban technologies and new urban management techniques.

The challenge is summarised by Niemczynowicz (1992) who says:

"The traditional approach to water related problems must change drastically; wastewater treatment technologies applied at present need to be complemented, and eventually replaced by novel, economically efficient and environmentally sound technologies".

And later Niemczynowicz (1992) suggests the basis for a new approach will need to include all of the following key elements:

• systems approach, with both structural and non- structural elements in contrast to narrow-minded technological approaches.
• > Multi disciplinary cooperation in order to solve complex problems.
• Small scale in contrast to technological monumentalism.
• > Source control instead of 'end of pipe' approaches.
• > Local disposal and reuse instead of exploitation and wastefulness.
• Pollution prevention instead of reacting to damage.

Use of biological systems and ecological engineering in waste water treatment.

Questions

1. How have transport systems and water systems worked together in shaping cities?
2. What are the problems with 19^th century water management solutions in the Auto cities of today?
3. How can small scale community-orientated water systems provide sustainable urban solutions?
4. >What are the new sustainable urban water management systems that are emerging?

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