Department Environmental Social Sciences
Transition towards Sustainable Urban Water Management (TSUM)
Background
Centralized, sewer-based wastewater treatment systems are typically the technology of choice in most urban water management systems despite some major drawbacks of this method (high sunk investments, inflexibility, high freshwater consumption). Especially as a solution for water scarce areas, alternatives such as water saving sanitation systems, rainwater harvesting or decentralized greywater and wastewater recycling systems are increasingly discussed. Even though technologies which allow for reliable on-site wastewater recycling have been developed recently, their application is ruled out in OECD countries by the persistent path-dependencies of the established centralized wastewater sector. The TSUM project therefore aims at analyzing the conditions for a transition towards more sustainable, decentralized wastewater recycling systems in the dynamically emerging Chinese wastewater sector. China is struggling with severe water scarcity in its North-Western regions and provides a unique market potential which might create economies of scale which could make decentralized wastewater recycling systems a competitive alternative to centralized wastewater treatment solutions.
Goal of the project
TSUM is a joint research project with the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It has both a conceptual and a problem-oriented goal: On the conceptual level it aims at developing new concepts for the assessment of international technological innovation systems and their influence on innovation systems in newly industrializing countries. On the problem-oriented level it aims at identifying potential future development pathways for a shift towards more sustainable wastewater sector regimes both in China and on a global scale. An important question in this field is whether China has the potential to "leapfrog" the development step of centralized wastewater treatment and directly implement decentralized wastewater treatment systems. Based on this analysis, policy recommendations to support certain trajectories towards higher sustainability will be formulated.
Research questions
The TSUM project investigates if and under which generalizable conditions China could become the seeding ground for a sustainability transition in global wastewater sectors.
Relevant conditions are analyzed with regard to technology development (focusing on emerging, globalized technical innovation systems) and with regard to implementation conditions (interrelation of national environmental policies and local decision making in China) in urban water management. The Swiss part of the project analyzes the "supply side" of the innovation by focusing on emerging international innovation systems of firms, research institutes and networks involved in the development of innovative decentralized wastewater recycling technologies. The following research questions are relevant here:
- How can international technological innovation systems be conceptualized?
- How are international and Chinese innovation systems linked?
- What influence do international actors and institutions have on Chinese innovation systems and the stakeholders of the Chinese wastewater sector that could support or hinder a decentralization?
The Chinese side is focusing on the "demand side" for decentralized wastewater recycling systems in China by answering the following questions:
- How do Chinese wastewater policies and new wastewater treatment technologies co-evolve?
- Which are important hindering and supporting factors for the emergence of more sustainable socio-technical regimes in the Chinese wastewater sector?
- How do decision making processes in the Chinese wastewater sector support or hinder the diffusion of decentralized wastewater treatment systems?
Empirical approach
A combination of empirical approaches and methodologies will be applied to answer these main research questions. The Swiss project team applies a technological innovation system perspective in order to identify the interrelations between innovative actors, networks and institutions in China and on a global scale. It will base its conceptual work on a co-authorship and patent analysis combined with extended interview campaigns with core stakeholders and experts both in China and the EU. The Chinese project team will focus on policy analysis tools and do case-study based investigations of wastewater sector governance in Chinese cities.
Christian Binz