نوع مقاله : علمی - پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 استاد گروه جغرافیا و برنامه ریزی شهری،دانشگاه تهران، تهران، ایران
2 گروه جغرافیا و برنامه ریزی شهری،دانشگاه تهران، تهران، ایران
کلیدواژهها
عنوان مقاله English
نویسندگان English
Extended Abstract
1. Introduction
Many of the current global crises can be considered the impacts of climate change. Amongst the main issues in this regard is severity of water scarcity. Many cities of the world have been grappling with this challenging problem over the past years. At the same time, such factors as population growth, groundwater contamination, shifting consumption patterns, and inadequate water resource management have exacerbated water insecurity in these cities. Consequently, water scarcity has emerged as a significant threat to global well-being and have imposed many challenges on urban environments. Various solutions and perspectives have been proposed over the decades to overcome the challenging problems. Among these, the concept of urban resilience has gained prominence. Achieving water security in urban spaces will require a comprehensive assessment framework to measure and evaluate the resilience of cities (i.e., strengths and weaknesses) for achieving the significant goal. Considering the mentioned issue, this study tried to formulate a good assessment framework for measuring urban resilience in the face of water insecurity.
2. Method
This study was conducted to formulate a comprehensive assessment framework. This was done due to the extensive body of research on urban resilience and the absence of a standardized framework that could evaluate urban resilience regarding water security. Through identifying and categorizing the elements that influence urban resilience in the face of water scarcity, this framework can ensure water security at the cities. Therefore, taking library sources and text mining tolls, this study showed the domains that have water security and identified the underlying principles of each domain. Then, through the indexation and making connections between these domains and urban resilience, and the domains to the measurable elements and indicators, this study proposed an assessment framework.
3. Results
At first the domains that generate water security (including domestic water security, socio-economic water security, urban water security, environmental water security, and resilience to water-related hazards) were identified. Then, the significant theoretical foundations related to each of the domains were explicated. Among the significant foundations of domestic water security are access to sufficient water, good quality water for maintaining the health of families, and the provision of sewage services to all residents. Some of the most significant foundations of socio-economic water security are productive use of water for ensuring economic growth, cost-effectiveness of water supply and the economic value of water. Among the important foundations of urban water security are good water management for supporting water-sensitive cities and water governance. Among the most significant foundations of environmental water security are sustainable use of water sources, the protection of water sources against water-related hazards. And some of the most significant foundations of resilience to water-related hazards are readiness for and mitigation of water-related hazard, and adaptation to the hazard. Finally, through the integration and connecting these foundations with different aspects of urban resilience (including social, economic, environmental, physical, and institutional resilience), the domain of urban resilience in the face of water insecurity were explicated. These domains consist of the provision of drinking water and its filtration for citizens, the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of drinking water sources for citizens, the sustainability of the water environment, resilience to water-related hazards and water governance. At the next step, the elements of each domain were extracted from the theoretical foundations of water security, and finally, applying the indexing method for each of the elements of urban resilience in the face of water insecurity, some traceable, objective and measurable indicators were offered.
4. Discussion and Conclusion
Over the past decades the evaluation of water security with various modern frameworks has increasing gained the attention many faulty members, experts, planners, policymakers, and decision-makers. Looking from an operational perspective, city is a good scale for taking into account the spatial and social diversity of water security assessment. The results of this study was the formulation of a measurement and assessment framework based on the elements and indicators of urban resilience in the face of water insecurity in five domains. According to this framework, we can expect that urban resilience in the face of water insecurity will lead in water security at the level of urban settlements through various actions: providing drinking water and wastewater treatment (giving citizens access to drinking water, improving high quality drinking water, and wastewater treatment); improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of drinking water sources (considering the economic value of drinking water, productive use of drinking water for economic growth, and cost-effectiveness of drinking water sources); water environment sustainability (the diversification of drinking water sources and the protection of drinking water sources); resilience against water-related hazards (being prepared for water-related hazards, their reduction, and gaining the ability to resist and take adaptation measures against the effects of hazards); and water governance (enhancing the awareness and support of citizens on water security and the participation and cooperation of stakeholders for supplying water).
کلیدواژهها English
©2024 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).