Application of the Improved City Blueprint Framework in 45 Municipalities and Regions

“Rapid urbanization, water pollution, climate change and inadequate maintenance of
water and wastewater infrastructures in cities may lead to flooding, water scarcity, adverse
health effects, and rehabilitation costs that may overwhelm the resilience of cities. Furthermore,
Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is hindered by water governance
gaps. We have analyzed IWRM in 45 municipalities and regions divided over 27 countries
using the improved City Blueprint® Framework (CBF). The CBF incorporates solely
performance-oriented indicators that more accurately measure the city’s own efforts and
performances to improve its IWRM. We have also analyzed the trends and pressures (on
which the city’s IWRM has a negligible influence). The Trends and Pressure Framework
(TPF) creates awareness of the most stressing topics that either hamper or, on the contrary,
pose opportunity windows for IWRM. The improved Blue City Index (BCI*) and the Trends
and Pressures Index (TPI; the arithmetic mean of all TPF indicators) have been compared with
other city descriptors. The BCI* and TPI showed a significant and negative Pearson correlation
(r=−0.83). This implies that cities with pressing needs to improve their IWRM also face
the highest environmental, financial and/or social limitations. The BCI* and TPI correlate
significantly with the ND-GAIN climate readiness index (r=0.86; r=−0.94), the environmental
awareness index (r=0.85; r=−0.85), the European green city index (r=0.86; r=−0.85) and
various World Bank governance indicators. Based on a hierarchical clustering of the 45
municipalities and regions, 5 different levels of sustainability of urban IWRM could be
distinguished, i.e., (1) cities lacking basic water services, (2) wasteful cities, (3) water efficient
cities, (4) resource efficient and adaptive cities, and (5) water wise cities. This categorization,
as well as the CBF and TPF are heuristic approaches to speed up the transition towards water
wise cities.”

(Citaat: Koop, S.H.A., Leeuwen, C.J. van – Application of the improved City Blueprint framework in 45 municipalities and regions – Water Resources Management 29(2015)13, p.4629-4647 – Open Access)