Water BOOST Enabling Innovation for Future Ready Cities 2025

Comparison of selected tools for urban water innovation and resilience, outlining focus, context, geography and developers; tools are shown in approximate chronological order of implementationTABLE 1 Tool Key focus and features Cities or regions appliedDevelopers or organizations involved Urban Water Optioneering Tool (UWOT)25,26Simulating water technologies at development scaleAlicante, Bodø, Gdansk, Lisbon, LondonUniversity of Exeter, B-WaterSmart City Blueprint (Blue City Index)27Indicator-based assessment of urban water sustainability using 25 indicatorsAmsterdam, Istanbul, Melbourne, Milwaukee, Quito, Rotterdam, plus cities in more than 30 countriesKWR Watercycle Research Institute, European Commission, University of Utrecht WaterMet2 Tool28,29 Scenario modelling for long-term urban water planningBelgrade, Bucharest, Istanbul, Oslo, TrnavaUniversity of Exeter, EU TRUST project Water4Cities (Polis Wizz Tool)30,31Smart water management platform using real-time dataAmman, Cape Town, Ljubljana, Manchester, Mexico City, Miami, SkiathosUniversity of Athens, Water Board of Skiathos, EU Horizon 2020 City Water Resilience Approach (CWRA) and OurWater Tool32,33Framework and digital tool for urban water resilience planningThessaloniki Arup, Stockholm International Water Institute, World Bank, Rockefeller Foundation, Resilience Shift Design with Water 2.034Design framework integrating water into urban planningHull, New York City, Shanghai, various United Kingdom planning initiativesArup Sources: Environmental Modelling & Software,25 WaterSmart,26 Water Resources Management/KWR,27 Drinking Water Engineering and Science,28 European Commission,29 Proceedings,30 Poliz Wizz,31 Resilient Cities Network,32 International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure,33 Arup34 This research project was designed to investigate the enabling environments for water innovation – the policy, institutional, financial and governance conditions that allow water solutions to scale. Existing frameworks rarely explain why promising innovations fail to achieve systems-based uptake. This gap led the project to adopt a systems-based approach, which helps reveal the interdependencies between stakeholders, incentives and structures – enabling decision-makers to identify leverage points, align fragmented efforts and coordinate interventions across sectors and scales. The research followed an iterative, multistage process (Figure 2) that combined analytical rigour with insights grounded in city case studies and water-sector stakeholders. It began with problem- scoping and hypothesis development, supported by a literature review and early engagement with city actors, experts and innovators to shape the conceptual framework and set investigation priorities.1.3 Methodology: Building a systems-based approach Multistage systems approach used to develop the methodology presented in this report FIGURE 2 Problem-scoping and hypothesis + conceptual frameworkFieldwork activities in selected case-study citiesData processing + systems toolkit developmentIn-depth analysis + framework and toolkit refinementReport writing + toolkit implementation Framework and toolkit validation6 5 4 3 2 1 Source: World Economic Forum Water-BOOST: Enabling Innovation for Future-Ready Cities 10