The adequate provision of water, energy, transport, and housing is intrinsic to the successful functioning of urban environments. These sectors intersect and overlap in complex ways, and they therefore require efficient, transparent and integrated strategising.
Strategising for the sustainable management of urban waters occurs at all levels of organisations, particularly executive and senior management, over the short-, medium- and long-term. Effective strategising integrates extensive networks of influence and inter-relationships to make well-informed (in)formal decisions. Analysing ‘strategising’ involves focusing on the institutions and actors involved in strategising and decision-making – their interconnections, situatedness, and the frameworks that influence them.
This study explores forms of agency, strategic practices, and institutional contexts that enable transitions to more sustainable and water sensitive cities. The research examined how urban water management (UWM) career choices and values influence UWM strategists, how UWM strategists’ practice UWM strategising, and how UWM strategists shape institutions to achieve sustainable UWM and vice versa.
A comparative case study approach was applied, employing semi-structured interviews with past and current executive and senior UWM strategists in Christchurch, New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia. The study applies a strategy as practice lens and critical institutional theory to explore how UWM strategists can create sustainability transitions towards more water sensitive cities. Aspects of place-based strategic practices were found to be important in facilitating sustainable transitions.