Sustainable Development of Urban Water Resources: An Appraisal for Asian Monsoon Region

Abstract

The challenges of water resources sustainable development are enormous in the Asian monsoon region. Meteorological behaviour in this region is signified by its warm and moist winds, northwest monsoon, blowing from the sea to the land during summer and bringing heavy rains in India and South East Asia. On the contrary, the northeast monsoon occurs when cold and dry winter air flows out of the interior of Asia from the northeast and bring the cool and dry winter season. This unique cyclic behaviour often results in several months of drought followed by a period of flooding, demanding robust water resources management at regional as well as local scales. The objective of this study was to assess water resources sustainable development for selected urban areas in the Asian monsoon region during the last decade. Using centralized databases of international agencies, for the period of 1993 to 1998, urban information pertinent to water resources were collected, analyzed and modelled. The study database consisted of information regarding urban water accessibility, consumption, price, wastewater treatment, and other pertinent social, environmental and economic indicators. Due to data inaccessibility, incompleteness and missing, less than 20 cities from Bangladesh, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam were selected for detailed analysis. The statistical analyses for the selected cities showed interesting results and relations in connection with urban water resources sustainable development of Asian monsoon region. For the period of 1993 to 1998, elasticity of database indicators were developed. Using elasticities, a composite urban water resources sustainability index was suggested. The elasticities and index were used in taxonomy of the selected cities, and reflected considerable variations in urban water demand and supply development. The study confirmed the significance of urban areas water resources sustainability challenges of the 21 $^{st}$ century for the Asian monsoon region.