Can Demonstration Projects Act as a Mechanism For Promoting a Transition?

This paper further explores how demonstration projects could act as a mechanism to support a transition in urban water management, to achieve water sensitive cities. Demonstration projects can be conceived as bounded experiments where the application/implementation of new technology, infrastructure or science/policy/programs that attempt something new (an innovation) is trialled. For example, demonstration projects can either be structural (i.e. technology or infrastructure) or non-structural (i.e. policy and people) projects applied in real-life (grounded) situations to test whether they can successfully offer new insights about enhancing or transforming current practice. Such projects are often found throughout Australian cities and can include a single technical innovation (i.e. sewer mine integrated into an office block) through to a whole development incorporating multiple innovations (i.e. streetscape biofiltration, wetlands and third-pipe wastewater). Similarly, non-structural techniques such as innovative policy mechanisms are increasingly being used, although such techniques remain supplementary to the standard technical, infrastructure solutions (e.g. Rauch et al., 2005; Mitchell, 2006; Coppock and Brown, 2007).

The focus of the paper is about exploring practitioner perceptions of experimentation (where experimentation equals demonstration of innovation) in the urban water sector, understanding what constrains experimentation and what mechanisms are required for the broad scale adoption of new approaches and techniques. To begin, the paper presents recent discussion on the social science theory of transitions, which draws connections to the importance of promoting a learning environment, supported by experimentation. The overall research approach is presented, followed by a discussion regarding the research outcomes and concluding remarks.