Technical models are useful tool to address epistemic uncertainties but often fall short of attending to other types of uncertainty that characterize complex water challenges. It is unclear if and how they might be repositioned as a more deliberative tool to help deal with the many uncertainties related to problem framing, uncertain future conditions, and likely intervention effects at various scales. Through the case of a multi-stakeholder water quality project in East Java, Indonesia, this paper explores how technical systems modeling can be used to support consensus-building regarding the characterization of water pollution problems and adjacent policy goals, both in the use of outputs and in the process of model-making and attendant deliberation. The water quality model combines mapped terrestrial pollution source estimates with rainfall-runoff and pollution transport and fate process models to estimate localized, regional, and basin-wide impacts of various source-reduction scenarios on water quality. By visually identifying pollution source concentrations and illustrating estimated impacts of alternative strategies, the model offers a useful visual tool on which to anchor reframing discussions and scenario-building. In this way, the case demonstrates how modeling can be repositioned as an invitation for planners to simultaneously deliberate alternative problem structures alongside interventions to better deal with uncertainties inherent to water resources management. ... Read more

Water managers and planners working within complex social-environmental systems are challenged with difficult choices when prioritizing interventions to manage water quality and reduce pollution from point and non-point sources. These choices are particularly important in low-resource environments where public funds must be carefully allocated. To support policy analysis for water quality management, a water quality modeling and policy consultation exercise was performed by Deltares, TU Delft, and government partners in the Brantas River basin, East Java, Indonesia. The modeling exercise combined mapped pollution source estimates for domestic wastewater and agricultural runoff with rainfall-runoff and pollution transport and fate models to demonstrate estimated impacts of various source-reduction scenarios on BOD loads along the main river. These outputs were used to inform deliberations regarding options to reduce water pollution and improve river health at a basin level. The model's ability to identify hotspots and assess the impact of targeted pollution reductions offers a powerful visual tool for policymakers to formulate geographically targeted interventions and identify the specific pollution source reductions that would yield the most substantial improvements. The case demonstrates the practical applications of scenario-building as an invitation for policy-makers to visually consider alternative interventions and focuses on lessons learned regarding capacities required to perform such activities, stakeholder engagement to build workable and meaningful model from an administrative perspective, and practical considerations for applying data-driven approaches to prioritization. ... Read more

Next to the challenges of paramount importance represented by water scarcity, food security, energy transition, and environmental protection issues, the obstacles faced on the matter of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are immense. WASH interventions are essential to support human health, prosperity, and dignity, as they provide the base for an adequate standard of living. In many low- and middle- income countries, especially in rural and low-income areas, decentralized wastewater treatment systems (DEWATS) can offer a solution to convey, treat, and dispose of or reuse wastewater closer to the source and through smaller conveyance networks. In Indonesia, and as such in the Brantas basin on East Java, focus area of this study, the government has recognized DEWATS as their best available option for improving sanitation in dense low-income urban settings. Although the percentage of households with access to proper sanitation in the province of East Java has been increasing steadily, service coverage and the quality of sanitation systems still need to be increased to reach the desired coverage by 2024. Similar to other fields of application, within WASH and concerning DEWATS, stakeholders engagement, ethics and gender dimension are key topics to develop and strengthen integrated approaches. It is challenging to formulate targeted interventions in the watershed since they depend on the willing support of various stakeholders who may have different priorities (even within their own institutions), having diverse (and sometimes conflicting) viewpoints. This may result in stakeholders strongly contesting the appropriateness of various solutions. An exploration of stakeholder priorities is therefore needed to facilitate the application of wastewater treatment technologies. Due to its participatory approach and the type of interpretation that the method allows, Q-methodology was selected to explore this situation. Q-methodology is a set of techniques which allow for the study of ‘subjectivity’, combining statistics with the depth provided by qualitative data. It is composed of the data collection technique (called Q-sorting) and a data analysis step via correlation and factor analysis. In this contribution, we explore the perspectives and priorities of various stakeholders regarding decentralized wastewater treatment solutions to assess the applicability and acceptability of DEWATS in the Brantas river basin. This allows us to identify context-based criteria and challenges to the implementation of DEWATS in the Brantas watershed. As such, we propose the Q-methodology as a strong methodology to further develop the required transdisciplinary scientific efforts to promote relevant insights and solutions through meaningful, pertinent, and effective stakeholder engagement. ... Read more

Recognizing the interrelatedness of water use and conceptual value of IWRM, progressive water resource management systems are moving beyond hierarchical arrangements toward more integrated networks. Increasing calls for participation recognize the value of broadened perspectives that provide both technical expertise as well as social, cultural, and administrative knowledge. Moreover, the call for evidence-based policy of '00s has been tempered by recognition of the political nature of data and science. As such, water decision-makers striving to coproduce and employ shared knowledge must grapple with integrating inputs from diverse participant groups to characterize policy problems and identify effective and feasible solutions. Participatory mandates, coordination bodies, and collaborative networks have emerged to facilitate such integration, and their effective cooperation and alignment relies upon some degree of shared purpose, rather than command and control. But guidance is limited with respect to how to accomplish such integrative aims, including how to support discussions across sectors and silos of practice in order to foster better understanding regarding the problems a policy network collectively aims to address. Motivated by observations within the discourse on water quality in the Brantas River basin in Indonesia, this research explores alternative concepts and problem structures regarding river health via Q methodology. Q methodology, an approach that uses factor analysis to explore human subjectivity, is applied to explore conceptualizations of water quality and the structures of the “water quality problem” in the Brantas. The results show that different groups of perspectives emerge regarding the concept itself, as well as characterization of the current condition of the Brantas. Surprisingly, these variant perspectives do not follow oft-cited government-business-civil society divisions. Moreover, the emergent perspectives demonstrate which aspects of the policy problem are consistent and which are contested, suggesting several starting points for early collaboration and several areas that require further research and facilitated deliberation. The results also offer participants in the collaborative network greater appreciation of the various perspectives and definitions in use, within and across organizations, when discussing water quality. ... Read more

China has emerged as one of the world’s most active markets for public–private partnerships (PPP) in the water sector, while the pace of such development globally has slowed in recent years. This article investigates the dynamics of the development of PPP projects in the Chinese water sector through comparative case studies. Our findings suggest that the unwavering pursuit of PPPs as a policy instrument by the central government, water sector reforms and the effective implementation of local governments are among key factors driving the impressive growth of PPP projects in China. ... Read more

Learning from experience to improve future infrastructure public-private partnerships is a focal issue for policy makers, financiers, implementers, and private sector stakeholders. An extensive body of case studies and “lessons learned” aims to improve the likelihood of success and attempts to avoid future contract failures across sectors and geographies. This paper examines whether countries do, indeed, learn from experience to improve the probability of success of public-private partnerships at the national level. The purview of the paper is not to diagnose learning across all aspects of public-private partnerships globally, but rather to focus on whether experience has an effect on the most extreme cases of public-private partnership contract failure, premature contract cancellation. The analysis utilizes mixed-effects probit regression combined with spline models to test empirically whether general public-private partnership experience has an impact on reducing the chances of contract cancellation for future projects. The results confirm what the market intuitively knows, that is, that public-private partnership experience reduces the likelihood of contract cancellation. But the results also provide a perhaps less intuitive finding: the benefits of learning are typically concentrated in the first few public-private partnership deals. Moreover, the results show that the probability of cancellation varies across sectors and suggests the relative complexity of water public-private partnerships compared with energy and transport projects. An estimated $1.5 billion per year could have been saved with interventions and support to reduce cancellations in less experienced countries (those with fewer than 23 prior public-private partnerships). ... Read more