Sustainable cities of the future require multifunctional water use. Current water quality and management frameworks insufficiently enable assessment of the potential supply of multiple urban surface water services based on water quality. There is no scientifically underpinned method for defining multifunctional quality criteria and indicators to quantify potential provision of services.
This project aims at developing a framework for assessing functional urban water quality supported by a scientific understanding of the dynamics of urban water quality. The framework employs an integrated understanding of the temporal and spatial variations in water quality to identify indicators for safe multifunctional use.
This multidisciplinary research is carried out in five phases to 1) assess urban surface water functions, 2) identify and review indicators and criteria for service provision; 3) identify key factors that influence the potential for multiple services to be provided by surface waters 4) identify improvement and mitigation strategies to enable multifunctional use 5) test the framework in case study cities.