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Climate change, population growth and increased consumption, coupled with urbanization, are all placing increased pressure on water management. This global challenge can often best be addressed at the local level, e.g. in cities by optimizing the role of civil society. Although there are approaches for assessing the sustainability of countries and cities, there is no dedicated framework for the assessment of the sustainability of urban water management. We have therefore compiled a comprehensive list of indicators (the city blueprint) for this. The city blueprint is proposed as a first step towards gaining a better understanding and addressing the challenges of integrated urban water management (IUWM). City blueprints will enable the IUWM of cities to be compared, and stimulate the exchange of success stories (good practices) between cities to address the enormous IUWM challenges which lie ahead. The city blueprint provides a quick scan and baseline assessment. It comprises elements from a variety of methodologies, such as water footprint, urban metabolism and ecosystem services. The indicators have been subdivided into eight broad categories, i.e. (1) water security following the water footprint approach developed by Hoekstra and Chapagain (2007), (2) water quality, which includes surface water and groundwater, (3) drinking water, (4) sanitation, (5) infrastructure, (6) climate robustness, (7) biodiversity and attractiveness and (8)

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Permeable pavements are a type of sustainable urban drainage system (SUDS) technique that are used around the world to infiltrate and treat urban stormwater runoff and to minimize runoff volumes. Urban stormwater runoff contains significant concentrations of suspended sediments that can cause clogging and reduce the infiltration capacity and effectiveness of permeable pavements. It is important for stormwater managers to be able to determine when the level of clogging has reached an unacceptable level, so that they can schedule maintenance or replacement activities as required. Newly-installed permeable pavements in the Netherlands must demonstrate a minimum infiltration capacity of 194 mm/h (540 l/s/ha). Other commonly used permeable pavement guidelines in the Netherlands recommend that maintenance is undertaken on permeable pavements when the infiltration falls below 0.50 m/d (20.8 mm/h). This study used a newly-developed, full-scale infiltration test procedure to evaluate the infiltration performance of eight permeable pavements in

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A heat pump combined with Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) is proven technology to economically and sustainably provide space heating and cooling. The two most important preconditions for the applicability of ATES are favorable climatic conditions and the availability of a suitable aquifer. This paper shows how these two preconditions can be combined to identify where in the world ATES potential is present, or will become present as a consequence of climate change. Countries and regions are identified where regulation and stimulation measures may increase application of ATES technologies and thus help reduce CO2-emissions. Two types of data determine ATES suitability, and their combination with a 3rd identifies potential hot-spots in the world: 1) geo-hydrological conditions, 2) current and projected climate classification and 3) urbanization. Our method combines the data into an ATES-suitability score as explained in this paper. On the one hand the results confirm the suitability for ATES where it is already applied and on the other they identify places where the technology is or will become suitable. About 15% of urban population lived in areas with high potential for ATES at the start of the 21st century, but this figure will decrease to about 5% during the 21st century as a consequence of expected climate change. Around 50% of urban population currently lives in areas of medium ATES suitability, a percentage that will remain constant. Demand for ATES is likely to exceed available subsurface space in a significant part of the urban areas.

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