Towards the Adoption of Integrated Urban Water Management for Planning

Integrated Urban Water Management is an emerging approach for urban waterutilities to plan and manage urban water systems to minimize their impact on the naturalenvironment, to maximize their contribution to social and economic vitality and toengender overall community improvement. The obvious starting point for adopting theIUWM approach is the strategic planning phase. However, little has been written onprocesses that enable application of the IUWM approach to planning. Identifying thisknowledge gap, the Water Research Foundation and the CSIRO, Australia jointlydeveloped a framework to adopt IUWM approach to strategic planning of urban watersystems (referred to as IUWM Planning Framework). This paper discusses principles,drivers and benefits of IUWM approach and provides an overview of the IUWM PlanningFramework. The Framework has three phases, each with distinct outcomes. Each phase hasfive activities. The activities undertaken in each phase are similar, and learnings from eachphase feed into subsequent phases. The IUWM Planning Framework is a useful planningaid for those who are part-way there to continue, and assist those who have yet to begin toassimilate their needs and knowledge into their first steps.