Localization Pattern of Water Sensitive Cities (Case study: Tehran Metropolis)

Document Type : Research article

Authors

1 Professor of Agriculture & Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 MA in Urban Planning, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

3 Professor of Social Planning, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction 
The increasing population growth and tendency to live in the cities have led to maximum urban population for the first time throughout history. In fact, substantial rise in the population of the earth and overexploitation of environmental resources to meet economic needs have particularly influenced water resources. Iran is by no means an exception in this regard and increasing urbanism, particularly in metropolitans such as Tehran, has hindered the implementation of necessary policies to protect the environment generally and water resources specifically. At present, it is widely agreed that traditional approaches to water management in cities cannot be adequate for current and future sustainability. Thus, fundamental changes are required in technical and managerial structures of urban water systems. Some modern approaches should also be applied in sustainable planning for urban water. In this regard, a rather new concept in urban water management, namely "water-sensitive cities", has emerged since twenty years ago. This management which deals with offering ecological solutions to gain sustainability in urban development, calling for basic modifications in common methods in managerial, social and technical  areas. The present study aims at localizing patterns of water-sensitive cities and determining Tehran's position compared with water-sensitive cities.
Methodology
The present research is purposeful, applied and developmental, and in terms of the research method, it is an analytical descriptive study. In order to collect information in this research, we have used library and documentary methods including documentary studies, library and deep review of research literature in relation to water sensitive cities and the determination of water-sensitivities to the conditions of Tehran. In the next step, two types of questionnaires were used for data collection, one of which was related to pairwise comparison and the other to determine the location of Tehran using the Likert spectrum. It should be noted that both of these questionnaires were distributed among 45 water and urban planning experts by the Ministry of Power (8 persons at the Ministry of Energy and 5 persons at the Water Resources Management Company of Iran) and Tehran Municipality practitioners (Protection Organization Out of the environmentalists, 8), and (Management and Planning Organization of the country, 5 people). To select the respondents, we examined them among the people related to the issue of water and urbanization among the academic elite  for interview. Due to limited access to these subjects, only 30 questionnaires were returned to the distributed questionnaires. The incompatibility risk in the process of analyzing the hierarchy of the main indicators in this research was 0.16 which is less than 1.0. Therefore, compatibility is acceptable. To determine the reliability of the questionnaire after the distribution of 30 questionnaires, we employed SPSS software to analyze the Cronbach's alpha. The Cronbach's alpha for this study was 0.863 that indicating the necessity of the questions. In the first stage, the relative weight of each of the criteria and sub-criteria specified by paired questionnaires was used, so that the questionnaires were distributed among 45 experts and decision makers in the field of water and municipal affairs and related organizations. The pairwise comparisons between each criterion and the sub-criteria were then taken to create a single matrix of all the scores obtained.  This ranked each of these indicators using the AHP hierarchy analysis and the SUPER Decisions software. In order to determine the status of each criterion of water-sensitive cities in Tehran, a water-sensitive city uses a Likert spectrum questionnaire, after distributing the questionnaire among water and urban planners and rating them to any criterion. Using SPSS software, one sample T test shows the status of each of these criteria and sub-criteria in Tehran relative to a water sensitive city that is optimal and in this research it is intended to be specified.
Results and discussion
Converging cities to sustainable cities in terms of water, or water-sensitive cities, requires major social and technical changes than conventional ones. The concept of water-sensitive cities is a new urban water management model that supports the use of decentralized water systems. Awareness and understanding of policy makers and urban planners about new concepts and methods of water resource management can be helpful for optimal decisions in water problems. One of the main steps in these issues is localization of indicators by new methods according to the conditions of the country. In this research, the theoretical foundations of water-sensitized cities were identified in accordance with the conditions of Tehran with 7 general areas. The overall result of the research have indicated that the highest importance was related to the index of water-quality governance with 0.2932, and the lowest value, 0/0616, is related to the quality of urban space index. The maximum distance between the standards in Tehran with a water sensitive city is due to planning for all strata with a value of 0.6636 and the lowest distance from the vegetation index and the cost of using the same services with the values of - 0.3830 and - 0.4010. The results indicated that Tehran is faced with serious deficiencies in current high-priority criteria. 
Conclusion
Finally, corrective solutions based on general and detailed findings of the research are proposed in the form of objectives, strategies and policies; some of them are:

Achieving proper governance for water sensitive cities
Increased social capital
Maintaining justice and equality in water affairs
Increasing the efficiency of water resources
Utilize Multipurpose Infrastructure
Improvement of ecological health
Increasing the quality of urban spaces

Keywords

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Geographical Urban Planning Research (GUPR)
Volume 5, Issue 3
October 2017
Pages 469-493

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