Sustainable urban water management

A new paradigm of urban integrated urban water/stormwater/wastewater offers a promise of adequate amounts of clean water for all beneficial uses. This emerging paradigm is based on the premise that urban waters are the lifeline of cities and the focus of the movement towards more sustainable "green" cities. The concepts of the new sustainable urban water management systems and the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) criteria by which their performance will be judged are summarised and outlined. The paradigm considers microscale green development concepts and links them with macroscale watershed management, water/stormwater/wastewater infrastructures and landscape preserving or mimicking nature. Urban water management in future ecocities may be based on the implementation of interconnected semiautonomous water management clusters. In the sustainable urban development the macroscale TBL measures of sustainability must be considered. The new systems will combine sustainable water conservation and reuse infrastructure and ecologically and hydrologically functioning landscape. Concepts and fundamental building blocks of ecocities are presented and discussed.