Advancing the Adoption of Diverse Water Supplies in Australia: A Survey of Stakeholder Perceptions of Institutional Drivers and Barriers

The National Urban Water Governance Program comprises a group of social science research projects that are examining the changing governance of Australian urban water management. This interim data report is part of the first stage in a broader program of research aimed at investigating and identifying the institutional factors most important for enabling Water Sensitive Australian Cities. While the analysis in this report is mostly descriptive, future reports will provide analysis that is more detailed.

Throughout 2006 and 2007, the Program focused on collecting various types of data from urban water professionals including online survey data (reported here), oral histories of the sector, interviews and focus groups with contemporary urban water professionals and associated stakeholders, industry and scientific literature reviews and project case studies.

This data report is one of two presenting the quantitative, online questionnaire survey data which focuses on understanding professional receptivity to diverse water supplies within the urban water sector. The other interim data report focuses on professional receptivity to urban stormwater quality management and should be read in conjunction with this report. Further, an Executive Summary Report has been published and provides a general overview of the key findings from each of the two data reports.

All Program publications are freely available on our website www.urbanwatergovernance.com.

The complete analysis of all the types of data collected within each case study city will be presented in three case study reports, which will culminate in one final comparative report on the Program’s institutional analysis across the three case study cities. These reports will be released throughout 2008.