Concept model for sustainable urban water management

In most of cities throughout the world, many common key challenges must be dealt with, in order to improve the management of urban water systems, such as demographic increase, climate change, maintenance of ageing assets, control of water price, etc. In order to solve water problems, the concept of sustainability needs to be integrated into urban water management (UWM). With this in mind a model of sustainable management of urban water system was developed. This model was based on a continuous assessment of the level of service which is obtained by data collection. If the measured service value does not match the desired value, improvements of the management strategy are set up and implemented. In this paper, the major components of this model possible conventional and alternative water technologies, data collection and monitoring approaches, sustainability assessment methodology - will be reviewed Finally, one type of UWM sustainability levels will be discussed.