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Sustainable and Resilient UWI
Sustainable and Resilient UWI
267
PPK, 0000-0002-1436-3609
ABSTRACT
Urban water infrastructure (UWI) in cities faces enormous pressure to cope with increased water demands, handle extreme
events and improve the service with minimum resource consumption and environmental impacts. The current study presents
an approach for addressing the challenges in UWI, specifically in water supply and sewerage. The article argues a need for a
paradigm shift that simultaneously includes the sustainability and resilience aspects throughout the life cycle of UWI. The article
further highlights the issues in the prevailing approach of centralized infrastructure and demonstrates the necessity of moving
away from such an approach and shifting towards decentralized infrastructure. Understanding the factors accelerating decen-
tralization to attain a paradigm shift to decentralization is necessary. Hence, the study first identifies the drivers of
decentralization. Secondly, the need for an appropriate scale to be considered while implementing decentralized UWI is high-
lighted in this study. Furthermore, the effect of the scale of infrastructure is discussed through the trade-offs between life-cycle
costs, ease of governance, resilience and recycling benefits. The approach of scaled decentralization outlined in the study will
be useful for developing countries to plan new infrastructure and also for developed countries to replace the ageing UWI to
create future sustainable and resilient urban systems
Key words: Decentralization, Resilience, Scale of decentralization, Sustainability, Urban water systems, Water and wastewater
infrastructure
HIGHLIGHTS
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits
copying and redistribution for non-commercial purposes with no derivatives, provided the original work is properly cited (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
Urbanization has become a global trend of the 21st century. Due to subsequent economic development, the
per-capita water consumption of the common person has intensified with the usage of appliances such as washing
machines, dishwashers and showers (Roshan & Kumar, 2020). Globally, the water crisis is a challenge in terms of
quality and quantity, which is attributed to improper water management and infrastructure planning. The lack of
adequate infrastructure creates hurdles to sustainable growth and intensifies poverty. Along with the advance-
ment in economic infrastructure, the necessity of investing in social infrastructure, i.e., education, health,
water supply and sanitation, for sustaining economic growth has also been realized in recent times. Under con-
sumer and political pressure, the municipal authorities (and utility providers) are obligated to supply water
catering to the demands of citizens concentrated in urban clusters. The priority for clean water compels the
municipal authorities to search for nearby surface water sources to create water supply infrastructure. Studies
have shown that even if an economic and political will has enabled the use of resources for fetching freshwater
or groundwater from long distances, two out of three cities cannot escape the water stress (McDonald et al.,
2014). The cities using long-distance resources ultimately affect the ecology of rivers and streams subject to the
excess withdrawal of freshwater and result in unexpected consequences such as shoreline erosion and stream
depletion, impacting human beings socially and economically (Leigh & Lee, 2019).
and design stage, which is magnified due to growing climate change-related stress (Bondank et al., 2018). Hence,
environmental resource governance is observing a shift in focus from attaining only optimized and efficient sys-
tems to those capable of adapting during stress periods (Lawson et al., 2020). Moreover, it is not economically
viable to design infrastructure to prevent failure from all possible disasters. Hence, resilience has to be incorpor-
ated to achieve a good design strategy. From a systems and information engineering perspective, resilience has
been defined as ‘the ability of the system to withstand a major disruption within acceptable degradation par-
ameters and to recover within an acceptable time and composite costs and risks’ (Ouyang et al., 2012).
Adaptive and resilient approaches in all stages of an infrastructure project can minimize the effects of climate
change and urbanization (Radhakrishnan et al., 2018).
With economic development on the rise, several cities are booming. However, the metro cities have been sig-
nificantly impacted due to uncertain factors and are hence the most vulnerable. In this context, UWI needs to
fulfil the expectations of sustainability and resilience. Sustainability is essential to make the water infrastructure
affordable, acceptable, environmentally prudent and relevant for the given location, whereas resilience in the
water infrastructure is essential to cope with the emerging hazards related to climate change. The water infra-
structure should have flexibility, adaptability and reliability to deliver the varying service levels expected
during emergencies.
A conceptual framework has been proposed by Zhang & Li (2018) to capture the differences between urban
resilience and urban sustainability. While sustainable systems cannot necessarily be resilient and vice versa, it is
important for the UWI to fulfil the expectations of both these aspects. However, hardly any studies have
approached UWI planning that simultaneously addresses both sustainability and resilience.
adopted in developing countries. Similarly, the wastewater treatment technologies that emerged in developed
countries are being adopted in developing countries without considering the appropriateness of these technol-
ogies (Singhirunnusorn & Stenstrom, 2009; Kalbar et al., 2012b).
The disadvantages of centralized UWI are now evident (Libralato et al., 2012; Eggimann et al., 2015; Jung et al.,
2018). Centralized systems are no longer deemed appropriate to address the challenges of UWI (Böhm et al.,
2011), suggesting an urgent need to rethink how UWI is planned and implemented. The coordination among var-
ious departments in a utility becomes complex with an increased level of centralization, especially for large-scale
systems. In extreme events, a centralized system might fail to deliver even a basic service due to the failure of
critical routes. In contrast, decentralized systems cannot get support from other subsystems due to the absence
of interconnections. Hence, ‘Centralized Control of Decentralized Execution’ is an emerging approach that com-
bines the advantages and disadvantages of centralized and decentralized systems (Diao, 2021). The following
sections describe the major lacunae in the centralized UWI by discussing the water supply and wastewater treat-
ment infrastructure. In summary, the lack of a holistic approach in planning UWI is highlighted.
2.1.1. Treatment
A major discrepancy posing problems in the funding of water supply projects is that the government allots funds
based on the current population, whereas the treatment plants are designed for the future population forecasted.
Additionally, centralized treatment systems are more vulnerable to extreme events and a lack of alternate water
supply arrangements can cause severe inconvenience to the users. The recent example of the failure of Asia’s lar-
gest water treatment plant in the Bhandup water complex in Mumbai clearly shows the impact due to the failure
of a centralized system (Hindustan Times, 2021). Water supply to the entire Mumbai region was affected as this
treatment plant got inundated for the first time in its life due to the sudden heavy rainfall.
instead of providing central storage with equivalent capacity (Harry, 2008). Such decentralized systems will have
net lower capital costs and will have many other operational benefits. For example, the multi-outlet tank usage
demonstrated by Ghorpade et al. (2021a) will help in the formation of district-metered areas without numerous
valve operations and achieve equitable water supply.
2.2. Wastewater
The challenges of the wastewater sector are severe, as it is only visible developments such as infrastructure and
water supply that receive priority from politicians and a lack of commitment by the government of developing
countries is identified as the real problem in sanitation (Mara, 2012). Furthermore, to tackle sanitation issues,
the provision of toilets is focused on, whereas sewage treatment is neglected. Even if sewage treatment plants
(STPs) are constructed, the planning is not ensured from the perspective of sustaining technologies or operational
and maintenance aspects of STPs. The incorporation of life-cycle thinking in sewerage infrastructure planning is
lacking, resulting in several obstacles or failures in achieving effective wastewater treatment.
2.2.1. Collection
The exclusion of sewage conveyance in the planning of STPs is a major hindrance that has resulted in the failure
of centralized STPs. Research on the life cycle of conventional wastewater systems, including sewers and STPs,
has shown the significant environmental impact of sewer infrastructure alone in both the construction and oper-
ation phases (Ranjan et al., 2019). The optimum degree of centralization depends on terrain conditions and
settlement dispersion, with the latter having a prominent impact (Eggimann et al., 2015). A typical sewerage net-
work consists of laterals, branch sewers and trunk sewer lines that ultimately deliver the sewage to the treatment
plant. Gravity sewers are constructed at a slope, and hence, the depth of the sewer is proportional to the length of
the network, reaching higher depths in a centralized system. The increased excavation for underground sewers
results in high capital costs (Sood et al., 2023). Although centralized infrastructure helps achieve a greater
scale of economy in treatment, it tends to diseconomy in the scale regarding sewer network construction,
where long distances have to be covered and vast volumes of potable water are required to keep the sewerage
system clean (Libralato et al., 2012). Moreover, since almost 80% of investment costs are attributed to the
sewer network, it becomes pertinent to give more importance to the economics of sewage conveyance in the plan-
ning phase (Eggimann et al., 2015).
There is a lack of scientific guidelines regarding the effective and regular maintenance of sewerage and septage
systems. Additionally, safety measures are often neglected during the O&M of sewers. Despite the prevalence of
norms regarding the usage of safety devices during sewage disposal, a lack of stringent monitoring and authoriz-
ation on the ground results in severe accidents onsite (Scroll, 2019). Also, unregulated practices such as
construction over sewer networks are prevalent in congested cities leading to accidents. The recent explosion
underneath a private bank in Pakistan due to gas accumulation in sewers is an example of such unsafe practices
(TOI, 2021).
disposed of in a nearby creek (TOI, 2016). In these circumstances, the construction of smaller decentralized units
tends to reduce the financial risks (Roefs et al., 2017) and achieve complete infrastructure utilization. The centra-
lized STPs are commonly designed based on the conventional activated sludge process or the sequential batch
reactor (CPCB, 2021). Irrespective of the size of STPs, the use of aerators in mechanized treatment systems con-
sumes around 75% of energy during biological treatment (Kalbar et al., 2012a; Maktabifard, 2018). As the energy
delivered to the STPs from external grids is obtained through fossil fuels, wastewater treatment contributes to sig-
nificant greenhouse gas emissions.
The treated effluent from centralized systems in developing countries such as India is commonly disposed of in
nearby water bodies. Their distant location hampers the possibility of providing treated wastewater for secondary
usage. The quantification of environmental benefits in decentralized systems is significant in economic feasibility
assessments since decentralized-level reuse projects become economically viable only after considering environ-
mental benefits (Kuttuva et al., 2018). On these lines, the need to implement circular economy principles of
reduce, reuse, recycle, reclaim, recover and restore has been identified for urban water management (Kakwani
& Kalbar, 2020).
Fig. 1 | Energy and nutrient flows in a centralized urban wastewater system and envisaged changes.
sludge can become valuable in agriculture. Furthermore, energy recovery can make the operation of STPs eco-
friendly and financially viable. In this manner, incorporating circular economy principles for managing waste-
water can transform sanitation into a sustainable service (Rodriguez et al., 2020).
Furthermore, apart from domestic sewage, the modern lifestyle of urban citizens has introduced emerging con-
taminants through pesticides, insecticides, toxic wastes from industries, etc. Emerging contaminants are defined
as any natural as well as synthetically occurring chemical or micro-organism that can potentially cause damage to
the ecology or human health after it is received by the environment and is left unmonitored (Philip et al., 2018).
Analysis of historical data has proved the deteriorating water quality of rivers to be associated with increasing
urbanization taking place in cities lying on the banks of rivers (Lokhande & Tare, 2021). A longitudinal
survey along the Ahar River in Udaipur, India has reported concentrations of emerging contaminants in the
wastewater similar to those of high-income countries, even up to 10 km downstream of the high-density areas
(Williams et al., 2019). The UWI in developing countries such as India should thus be capable of responding
to upcoming challenges such as handling emerging contaminants.
The intrinsic limitations of centralized systems do not meet the expectations of holistic planning required for
future-ready UWI. The new generation of UWI should have the capability to address all the concerns of sustain-
ability as well as resilience right from the planning stage. This is possible by shifting the current paradigm of
infrastructure creation to decentralized systems. Decentralization is the only viable approach to overcome these
issues, making decentralized UWI in urban planning a fundamental requirement.
3.1. Sustainability
The sustainability definition in the context of water infrastructure has been extended as ‘infrastructure designed
and managed to fully contribute to the objectives of society, now and in the future, while maintaining their eco-
logical, environmental and hydrological integrity’ (Marques et al., 2015). The triangular framework of
sustainability based on economic growth and efficiency, social justice and environmental protection is widely
used for managing natural resources (Sahely et al., 2005). Furthermore, the sustainability of any product or
system has been commonly associated with the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach, including social, environ-
mental and economic dimensions (Marques et al., 2015), which is inadequate in addressing sustainability
issues. Hence, subsequent studies have also considered technical and functional aspects such as durability,
reliability, performance and flexibility, evaluation of policy initiatives and governing institutions (Kalbar et al.,
2016; Rathnayaka et al., 2016). Sustainability is, thus, a critical perspective to be considered by planners and
decision-makers while creating UWI. Achieving sustainability is one of the main drivers for decentralized
UWI and it is gained by virtue of various factors, which are described in detail in Table 1.
3.2. Resilience
Water sensitivity has become a key transition in urban areas and accordingly, cities have begun to adapt to major
changes happening in the world. The worldwide expansion of urban areas, population growth, limitations due to
resource scarcity and the accompanying climate change have enhanced the need for resilient water systems. In
the context of UWI, resilience refers to the ability of water systems to minimize the magnitude and duration of
water supply service failure when subjected to extreme conditions (Diao, 2021). In this regard, a paradigm
shift occurred from fail-safe design strategies to safe-fail (resilient) design strategies, penetrating water infrastruc-
ture systems (Ahern, 2011). Water infrastructure resilience is relatively a new topic in both research and industry
and has been identified as a requirement for the future.
Resilient design systems aim to sense, absorb and adapt to disturbances while maintaining essential function-
alities (Leigh & Lee, 2019). Resilience has been associated with characteristics such as robustness, rapidity or
Driver Description
recovery, redundancy, reliability and buffering. The concept of resilience has multidisciplinary origins, which
leads to multiple interpretations. The changes appear to be gradual, with many cities still investing in traditional
strategies. However, with a growing awareness of the importance of climate change, disasters, increased water
demand, the urban communities are progressively expecting resilience in UWI to cater to the future uncertainties
in urban water supplies. Spiller et al. (2015) have considered robustness, adaptive capacity and flexibility as the
three main components of resilience.
The robustness of technical systems denotes their ability to function and perform to meet the set objectives even
amidst changing environments and vulnerable operating conditions (Spiller et al., 2015). Robustness is the
capacity of a treatment system to withstand a disturbance without entering a phase of unsatisfactory performance
(Cuppens et al., 2012). For example, a robust water supply and sewerage infrastructure is the one that continues to
function satisfactorily till the end of the design period amidst varying loads, influent characteristics and effluent
quality standards. Interestingly, a resilient system is allowed to fail under extreme conditions, but the ability to
recover quickly from stress and sustain the minimum functionality and service is referred to as adaptability or
adaptive capacity. The time taken by the system to recover from a perturbation and regain its satisfactory perform-
ance plays a key role and is referred to as rapidity (Cuppens et al., 2012). Furthermore, the flexibility of a system
denotes the ability of the infrastructure to cope with changing operational conditions in response to emerging
circumstances by entailing changes in scale, functionality, structure and operational objectives (Spiller et al.,
2015). Flexibility refers to the ability of UWI to meet the newer guidelines with minimal infrastructural changes.
It facilitates the integration of unpredicted advances in technologies, such as easy retrofitting for resource recov-
ery options or capacity expansion (Spiller et al., 2015). The advantages of decentralized systems with regard to
resilience have been outlined in Table 2.
Driver Description
implementation has been identified as an engineering challenge (Woods et al., 2013). The issue of the scale of
implementation has been pointed out to have significance in the implementation of decentralized systems
(Arora et al., 2015). Hence, it is essential to plan the UWI, so that maximum benefits of scale of the economy
are gained. Such a decentralized approach with an optimum scale of operation is essential for the smooth
functioning of UWI (Kalbar & Gokhale, 2019). Moreover, climate change, population expansion and
ageing infrastructure pose unprecedented challenges to urban water systems in this century. With developed
countries on the verge of replacing their age-old infrastructure amidst the systems outliving their initial design
periods (Nikolopoulos et al., 2019), the proposed scaled decentralization can be used to replace the conven-
tional UWI.
The distinction between centralized and decentralized treatment systems is depicted in Figure 2. Various defi-
nitions of the decentralized approach are documented in the literature and have been framed around population
services or development characteristics. For example, Sharma et al. (2013) have defined a decentralized approach
as the ‘water, wastewater and storm water services at property, cluster and development scale that utilize alterna-
tive water resources based on fit-for-purpose concept’. Libralato et al. (2012) have systematically defined various
configurations of centralization and decentralization. Furthermore, decentralized wastewater treatment includes
systems that treat wastewater from small households or groups of dwellings and dispose of the effluent near the
point of waste generation itself (Ranjan et al., 2019). Also, Paul et al. (2019) have proposed classification of cen-
tralization and decentralization based on potable and non-potable water reuse systems. Recently, Sood et al.
(2023) have comprehensively documented the advantages and disadvantages of centralized and decentralized
water systems.
Fig. 3 | Ideal zone of UWI for achieving sustainability and resilience based on various parameters.
environmental impacts reduce towards decentralized systems up to a certain point, beyond which a greater quantity
of materials and resources consumed in treatment systems are associated with greater embodied emissions. Further-
more, the coordination among the service providers is better managed in decentralized systems operating at a
community scale as against individual households. The O&M of small-sized infrastructure systems is relatively
easy. Also, the complexity involved in outsourcing infrastructure projects increases for highly centralized systems
and causes inconvenience in implementation, for example, delays due to tendering, land acquisition, involvement
of multiple agencies, etc. Coupling the above trends, it is observed that the ease of governance is on the lower side
for centralized systems, increasing towards decentralization up to a point, beyond which it further reduces.
As far as resilience is concerned, decentralized systems function well amidst changing environments and can
resume service in less time than centralized systems. Centralized systems are less robust and more vulnerable to
failures. For example, water supply systems use natural water bodies as their source, which might be at greater
risk of flood or drought or any other case of water contamination (Liu et al., 2021). Decentralized systems can
have multiple or localized water sources, for example, reclaimed water for non-potable purposes thus increasing
their resilience. Hence, the robustness of centralized systems is the lowest and it increases towards decentraliza-
tion. With regard to adaptive capacity, the time within which service can be provided after failure is crucial. This
can be easily achieved for decentralized systems of smaller capacity, which can be installed in a few days or
months as against large centralized systems that may take even years to get commissioned. Also, moderate invest-
ments are suggested to achieve increased recoverability, which also result in enhanced robustness (Liu et al.,
2021). Additionally, the organizational aspect of resilience plays a key role in implementation. Decision-making
during a crisis can be better achieved at the community level than individual households, while it may get prolonged
in highly centralized projects. Thus, adaptive capacity increases towards decentralization up to a certain point,
beyond which it decreases slightly. Furthermore, the need for large systems is suggested for increased resilience;
however, a large capacity of such large systems remains idle in the initial years resulting in capital costs being
futile. In this background, reducing investments by building infrastructure that provides service for only 10 years
is suggested instead of planning the service provision for 50 years (Giordano, 2012). Implementing decentralized
systems in a phase-wise manner proves to be cheaper, more efficient and also capable of responding to new devel-
opments occurring in the area, earning higher flexibility. Thus, the decentralized UWI provides greater flexibility
than their centralized counterparts and hence is depicted by an increasing trend in Figure 3.
To holistically plan and implement UWI, the culmination of all the above parameters is needed. Hence, the
notional trends of these parameters are collectively shown in Figure 3. In an ideal UWI, the sustainability and
resilience of UWI should be the maximum, which can be only possible through the appropriate level of decen-
tralization. As Figure 3 depicts, the resilience of UWI increases towards decentralized systems and stabilizes
after one size or scale, whereas sustainability decreases beyond one point. It is observed that the most economical
systems having maximum benefits tend to fall between the highly centralized and highly decentralized systems.
Consequently, the mid-zone becomes most favourable from the perspective of simultaneously achieving sustain-
ability and resilience. This hypothesis is supported by the results of a comparative life-cycle assessment of
centralized, community, neighbourhood and household scales that have shown the community level to perform
better among others for the same treatment technology and end-use (Kobayashi et al., 2020). Also, amidst the high
O&M costs making greywater reuse uneconomical at the household scale, the use of sewer mining at a neigh-
bourhood scale is suggested as a potential reuse scheme (Makropoulos et al., 2018).
that can be implemented in a decentralized manner. However, either onsite or natural treatment systems
cannot be solely categorized as decentralized solutions. Decentralized systems can operate at different spatial
scales, namely, onsite scale (operated by property holders); cluster or development scale (operating under
shared ownership) and distributed systems serving large developments (owned by water utilities) (Sharma
et al., 2013). Decentralization cannot always be deemed small scale and needs to be context-specific (Libralato
et al., 2012). Cluster systems are often used in communities and keep a balance between onsite and centralized
treatment facilities (Vedachalam et al., 2015). Similarly, a semi-centralized approach has been suggested as a
viable solution for old city centres as well as the growing expansions, and the guiding principle for scaling
semi-centralized systems is ‘as small as possible as big as necessary’ (Böhm et al., 2011). In our study, the water
supply or wastewater collection and treatment systems designed for a discretely selected population size to achieve
the scale of the economy that can maximize sustainability and resilience at a given location are referred to as
‘scaled decentralized systems’ (SDSs). SDSs should be designed considering population density, land availability,
regulations, stakeholder interests and fund availability with the Urban Local Body (ULB). SDS has the advantage
of diffusing the risk of extreme weather events, making them more climate-resilient. The focus of the current study
is to bring out the importance of planning and implementation of SDS to achieve sustainable and resilient UWI.
Planning urban water supply involves decision aspects such as the location of elevated storage reservoirs, the
sizing of networks and deciding appropriate zones. Similarly, planning water reuse involves numerous decisions,
for example, location, size, treatment technology, sewer size and appropriate end-use. Several trade-offs are
involved in the decision of deciding the scale of implementing decentralized infrastructure. Computing the tip-
ping point where the advantages of peripheral water reuse will outweigh the benefits of centralized treatment
is complicated (Woods et al., 2013). Amidst these practical difficulties, the present study proposes using the
size of cities to determine the scale of decentralization for UWI. Based on the author’s experience and discussion
with experts, a scale of decentralization is suggested depending on the size of the city and the estimated sewage
generation. For example, as illustrated in Figure 4, small cities can be regarded as those generating approximately
10 MLD of sewage as against a metro city generating sewage around or exceeding 2,000 MLD. The authors pro-
pose the scale of decentralization to range from 1 to 2 MLD STP for small cities, whereas it can go up to as high as
50–80 MLD for metro cities. A centralized scale for a smaller city can be a decentralized scale for a metro city.
Thus, it should not be the absolute magnitude of plant capacity but the relative magnitude with respect to the size
of the city that decides the scale of decentralization in UWI planning.
Unless such an appropriately scaled decentralization is adopted, equitable pressure distribution in water supply
systems and cost-efficient sewage treatment cannot be achieved. Also, the recycling of treated wastewater and
resources recovered from the system cannot be economically redistributed and efficiently used. Such an optimally
scaled decentralized UWI will offer the following benefits compared to the prevailing centralized approach of
UWI:
• Attainment of SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 13
Climate Action;
• High flexibility, which will address hazards emerging from climate change;
• High adaptability will be useful for responding to different rates of urbanization in the city;
• High reliability, as at least some of the systems will function during the catastrophic events;
• An opportunity for low-cost and land-based solutions for UWI;
• Reduced O&M cost as phasing of the UWI is possible;
• Opportunity to accelerate the circular economy in the water sector.
advanced treatment technologies. Murphy et al. (2009) emphasized that ‘soft aspects’ of wastewater treatment
technology such as knowledge transfer mechanisms, capacity building and other social aspects need to be equally
considered with physical properties ‘hard aspects’. The study also mentioned that the situation or the context of
decision-making decides the appropriateness of technology, despite the proven success of technology in a labora-
tory or other field conditions. Hence, the decision regarding technology selection should be done on a case-by-
case basis, depending on the scale of implementing the UWI.
Several researchers have pointed out the benefits of decentralization in UWI. Additionally, the present study
has systematically discussed the significance of decentralized systems through various drivers from the perspec-
tives of sustainability and resilience. The variation of drivers across the scale of decentralization is illustrated
through notional trends, which has led to the definition of SDS, an approach that is a prominent contribution
to the existing literature. However, the study is based on a theoretical understanding emerging from the literature
review. This work can be regarded as a starting point in the discussion of SDS. Researchers can take up individual
drivers and quantify their variation across the scale of decentralization. Also, this quantification can be done for
different classes of cities, which can prove the hypothesized optimal scales proposed in Figure 4 through compu-
tational analysis.
5. CONCLUSION
The evolution of water infrastructure historically has been inclined towards planning and designing centralized
infrastructure. The cities are currently going through changes such as urbanization and climate change that posed
various stresses on the UWI. To cope with these challenges, there is a need for a paradigm shift in the way the
current UWI is planned, designed, implemented and operated. It is essential to consider sustainability and resi-
lience perspectives while creating new UWI or retrofitting the existing UWI. The current centralized UWI does
not allow enough opportunities for the water sector to practice a circular economy in the cities. Also, it is not
economical and environmentally sustainable to recycle the treated water and create new water sources in the pre-
vailing practice of centralized UWI. Moreover, centralized UWI does not offer any flexibility, adaptability and
overall resilience, which have recently gained significance amidst the emerging extreme events due to climate
change.
This study has identified the drivers for decentralized UWI from the perspectives of sustainability and resili-
ence. The present work argues that along with an emphasis on decentralization, there is a need for
considering the appropriate scale of implementation in decentralized UWI. The trade-offs between governance
aspects, redistribution costs, recycling opportunities, life-cycle costs and resilience between highly centralized
and highly decentralized systems are highlighted in this work. Although it is difficult to establish a perfect
number for scaled decentralization in a given context, the approach of moving towards the optimal zone combin-
ing centralized and decentralized treatment systems is the take-away message of this study. Lastly, the study
emphasizes that the overall UWI strategy is more important than the actual technological choices and presents
a perspective that technologies for decentralization can be both high-tech or low-tech and depends on the site
conditions and the scale of implementation. We hope that this study reaches the appropriate target audience
of researchers, practitioners and urban local bodies who will implement the learnings and further contribute
to quantifying the economic scale of decentralization through optimization models, case studies and policy
changes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The second author is grateful for the scholarship under the ‘Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship’ category at the
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
FUNDING
This work has received partial funding for the work from the Department of Science and Technology, Govern-
ment of India through the project ‘Fast Forward to SDG6: Acceptable and Affordable Water in Secondary
Indian Cities (4WARD)’ (project no. DST/TM/EWO/WTI/2K19/ UWS-03(C4)).
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare there is no conflict.
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First received 28 July 2022; accepted in revised form 17 February 2023. Available online 13 March 2023