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Introduction Important issues Indicators + benchmarks Cross sector links References

Cross sector links

Cross sector considerations that impact with the water sector
Here are presented some general and cross sector considerations that can help professional actors working on water areas. These are some leads to go closed to sustainability and of course should be adapted to each specific context:
- Management of water should be understood as a part of management of the cities: sustainable management of water in the city is obviously impossible to achieve if it is not included in a sustainable management of cities. That could mean that it is necessary to redefine the relationships between urban planners and the engineers in charge of water management.
- Sustainable development will only happen if it is explicitly planned for.
- the working scale should be adapted to the raising problem: global approach at the catchment area scale / global approach at the city scale.
River
- questions should be raised in terms of needs and not in terms of technical solutions.
- financing modes should change: taxes proportional to water flows, invoice according to real consumption, economic help for pro-active water users.
- To encourage adaptive technical solution with possibilities of adjustments: integrated systems for water management are complex, their operation is difficult to foresee and that's why observation, monitoring and reactivity are needed.
- To develop the "best management practices" (BMP's). Network drainage has proved its limit. Since several years, solutions alternative of the network has been designed. It is to use, in an effective manner, natures own processes to handle pollution and storm runoff.
- To reconsider the water urban functions/uses. Trying to change the water threat as a mean to improve its usefulness.

The main conflict is related to the urban planning:

Water planning and urban planning: Water management highlights the fact that the impervious areas must be reduced and that some areas should not be built in order to allow the infiltration of water and so to avoid flooding. water and urban planning It is easier to avoid building in a site liable to flooding than to design a way to manage flows while flooding. Thus water management do not purchase the same goals than the limitation of urban sprawl and land-use. The challenge could be to combine both approaches. This last conflict domain exists also between water planning and transport sector as urban development and transportation patterns have a similar evolution.

Some other conflicts area related to the conception and management of urban water infrastructures:
Storm water BMP (Best Management Practices) versus green space management: BMP offers the possibility to manage storm water and enhance landscape (leisure function).