Issues, Dimensions and Approaches of Assessing Urban Water Security in Developing and Emerging Countries: An Inclusive Perspective

Urban water security addresses various water challenges in a city including its urban and peri-urban area where the problems are not only depending on its physical water availability in a straightforward manner but also on its relations to and influences by social, cultural, economic and political factors. Hence, this chapter takes a review approach and aims to unravel the biophysical and socio-cultural relationships that shape the urban water security from an emerging country perspective, exploring the implications of including social and environmental changes and the possibilities in achieving urban water security. We will show that, although several concepts and approaches have emerged focusing on issues such as water-energy-climate nexus and urban water sustainability, most of these approaches fail to consider social perspectives and their relationship with bio-physical environment at a micro level. Existing urban water evaluation approaches are not holistic; often focusing more on bio-physical and technical factors (such as water supply and drainage systems within urban areas) rather than evaluating the entire socio-eco-hydrological performance of the urban area. They currently do not account for the multiple functions of water as a resource across the urban landscape and do not consider the interwoven relations between water and social, cultural, political and economic factors. This constrains our ability to measure what influence on water security, design interventions and manage urban areas in ways that may achieve overall water security. Whilst these approaches can show how components of urban areas’ water systems are performing along the dimensions of water supply and drainage systems, a comprehensive framework is needed to frame the problems, monitor or inform progress that accounts for the wide range of factors and associated issues that impact overall water security. This will in term impact the chances of successfully and sustainably addressing issues of urban water insecurity. The chapter first discusses the various dimensions, measurement approaches and indicators used in similar research. In the second part, we propose a comprehensive framework for measuring and evaluating water security for the cities, particularly for emerging countries, in a holistic manner aiming to contribute positively to the future planning and management of sustainable urban water security.