Governance, Sustainability and Decision Making in Water and Sanitation Management Systems

Abstract

Abstract:We explore the connections between the concepts of governance and sustainability and discuss their possible roles in water and sanitation management systems (WSMS). We see governance as a decision-making process that drives the relationship between social institutions and the public affairs of a given society. We understand sustainability as a combination of spatial, temporal, and personal aspects, and we argue that this definition is more comprehensive than the traditional triple bottom line of economy, environment, and society. We combined these two concepts into a new conceptual framework of "governance for sustainability" that is theoretically sound and arguably appropriate to understand local WSMS. To illustrate this framework, we developed and estimated a Sustainable Water Governance Index (SWGI) for the city of Salta, Argentina. This aggregated index was calculated with data from literature, information from the city's water company and other local institutions, field visits, and interviews. The SWGI for Salta obtained an overall score of 49 on a 0-100 scale, which fell into the "danger" range. We discuss the advantages and limitations of the method and conclude that aggregated indices such as the SWGI, complemented with contextual information, can be a helpful decision-making tool to promote more sustainable WSMS.

Water Governance in India: Evidence on Water Law, Policy, and Administration from Eight Indian States

“…This gives us a conceptual clarity about water governance with well-defined boundaries, making it measureable with relative ease. Frameworks used by other studies try to present water governance as an all-encompassing concept, rendering it conceptually ambiguous and making it difficult to measure; see for example Bakker, Kooy, Shofiani and Martijn [76]; Thắng, Tran, and Luong [81]; Aminova and Abdullayev [104]; Franks and Cleaver [105]; and Iribarnegaray and Seghezzo [102].…”

“…The indicators and indices used in the water sector are the Water Barrier Norm by Falkenmark [100], the Water Poverty Index by Sullivan [101], and the Water Institutions Health Index (WIHI) by Dinar and Saleth [94]. Iribarnegaray and Seghezzo [102] also calculated a Sustainable Water Governance Index (SWGI) for the city of Salta, Argentina and argued that these indices, when combined with contextual information, can be very helpful in making water and sanitation-related decisions. Our index most closely resembles the WIHI, as we use the same but improved framework developed by Dinar and Saleth [96].…”

From Indicators to Policies: Open Sustainability Assessment in the Water and Sanitation Sector

“…Thus far, even though there is a multiplicity of approaches and methodologies for the estimation of sustainability indicators, the impact of these indicators on concrete governance processes seems disappointingly small [16,61,62]. This disconnection may partially be due to the fact that researchers, who concentrate their efforts on the descriptive aspects of sustainability and governance, do not always satisfactorily engage with the more normative and fully political aspects of governance "for" sustainability [40,63].…”

“…Due to space limitations, a detailed description of all calculations is not feasible in this paper. More details about the calculation of indicators and variables can be found in Iribarnegaray et al [23] and Iribarnegaray and Seghezzo [40] Information needed to estimate indicators and variables was updated to December 2014.…”

“…The water and sanitation sustainability index (WASSI) was developed as a tool to support governance processes for more sustainable water management [23,40]. The WASSI was built on the five-dimensional sustainability concept proposed by Seghezzo [11].…”