A trade-off balance among urban water infrastructure improvements and financial management to achieve water sustainability

ABSTRACT

Rapidly growing population, unplanned urbanization, aging and lack of infrastructure, and climate change inhibit communities meeting the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) related to urban water service provision. Despite planning of water infrastructure solutions, the implementation has been limited due to financial constraints and lack of evidence-based decision-making guidance. This study investigates the trade-offs and integrated actions of water infrastructure improvements and financial management to enhance water supply service and system sustainability in tandem using a case study metropolitan area in Pakistan. This study employs a System Dynamics modeling approach to support the analysis of complex feedback interactions among water system improvements and financial management in evaluating water supply coverage and availability, revenue water, and cost recovery. The findings suggest synergies/trade-offs between system augmentation/maintenance and water tariff increase for a city to co-achieve effective water services and financial sustainability in pursuit of the UN SDG 6.

KEYWORDS:

• Integrated water management
• financially sustainable asset management
• urban infrastructure management
• decision support tool
• system dynamics model
• sustainable development

Acknowledgements

This study was made possible by the support of the United States Government and the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.

Supplementary materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2021.1992452.