Assessment of the Sustainability of Water Resources Management: A Critical Review of the City Blueprint Approach

“Climate change, urbanization and water pollution cause adverse effects and rehabilitation
costs that may exceed the carrying capacity of cities. Currently, there is no internationally
standardized indicator framework for urban Integrated Water Resources Management
(IWRM). The City Blueprint® is a first attempt and aims to enhance the transition towards
water-wise cities by city-to-city learning. This paper provides a three step revision of
the City Blueprint Framework (CBF) based on data of 45 municipalities and regions
in 27 countries: (1) A distinction has been made between trends and pressures (on
which urban IWRM has a negligible influence) and IWRM performances. Therefore, a
separate trends and pressures framework has been developed; (2) Only the purely
performance-oriented indicators have been selected from the CBF. Furthermore, the
indicator accuracy and boundaries have been re-assessed, and new indicators have
been added; (3) By analyzing correlations and variances, the performance-oriented
indicators have been rearranged in order to establish a proportional contribution of all
indicators and categories to the overall score, i.e., the Blue City Index®. In conclusion,
six indicators have been removed because of insufficient accuracy, overlap or
lack of focus on IWRM. Seven indicators have been added, i.e., secondary and
tertiary wastewater treatment, operation cost recovery, green space and three indicators
concerning solid waste treatment. The geometric aggregation method has been selected
because it emphasizes the need to improve the lowest scoring indicators. In conclusion,
the improved CBF is more performance-oriented and therefore more suitable to
assist cities in their transition towards water-wise cities.”

(Citaat: Koop, S.H.A., Leeuwen, C.J. van – Assessment of the sustainability of water resources management; A critical review of the city blueprint approach – Water Resources Management 29(2015)15, p.5649-5670 – Open Access)