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Urban water management can be challenging, but in Small Island Developing States it is particularly difficult due to resource constraints and isolation. This is the situation in the town of Tarawa in Kiribati, where attempts to improve water services have often not led to the desired outcomes. The reasons are varied, and include widely a lack of consideration of local circumstances, process requirements, and inadequate involvement of affected stakeholders, and inadequate cross-sectoral coordination. In light of the tendency in urban water planning to assume only the idealized performance of strategies, the authors argue that there is a need to also formally consider the likelihood of realizing this idealized performance. It is difficult to assess such likelihoods, other than via the use of judgments by expert and local stakeholders. Such judgments are typically qualitative and fairly abstract and often not directly concerning a particular strategy. The current paper provides a methodology to assess the likelihood of the idealized performance of strategies, based on Bayesian Networks (BNs) and Subjective Logic (SL) utilizing expert and local knowledge, creating a capacity to capture and apply previous experiences, and dispersed knowledge in decision making and planning. The methodology has been developed and tested on water management strategies in the town of Tarawa, Kiribati. As such, this paper provides a method for mapping the causal explanations for why developments do not achieve their set goals, and the approach may form the basis for assessments to be more widely applied when evaluating urban water strategies in similar contexts. In this paper, the approach has been applied by using existing data from interviews and literature to evaluate one strategy, reserve extensions and groundwater extraction. Other strategies, i.e. rainwater harvesting, desalination and have also been evaluated but have not been described in this paper because of limited space. 2012 Els

Decentralised water systems are considered to be effective, beneficial and are useful in a number of urban and peri-urban settings, and have been implemented to varying degrees across much of Australia. The use of decentralised water systems has introduced a change in the style of water service delivery and often there are new actors responsible and involved in the maintenance and operation of these systems. This raises questions about how to best implement and govern the use of decentralised water systems. To understand the issues and problem mitigation approaches required for decentralised systems, collection of data on the effectiveness, difficulties, functional aspects and ongoing problems in providing water services is required. Understanding the issues involved is not necessarily straightforward, as performance can be viewed from many different perspectives and may be difficult to measure. One key perspective to consider is that of householders, in their role as end-users of decentralised water systems. This paper suggests that dedicated household surveys can provide important information on the performance of decentralised water systems based on personal understanding and experience of these systems. This is stated on the basis of householder survey trials which indeed seem to provide useful information, both in terms of feedback from the individual and in generating a coherent data set from which to statistically model the adequacy of various implementation styles and governance structures. An exploration of data sets from survey trials have contributed to collective learning, necessary in firmly establishing decentralised systems as viable options for the provision of urban water services now and into the future.

This paper provides a discussion on how case study research fits into the bigger picture of theory building in the social sciences. In particular, it discusses how case study research, as opposed to more classical quantitative (often statistical) approaches contribute to the progression of collective learning in science. As such, for arguments sake, in this paper these approaches (i.e. qualitative vs. quantitative) are put into a competitive relationship. It is acknowledged that such competitive relationship does not exist in theory, as they are often considered to be complementary, but in practice qualitative research is often more difficult to publish; and tends to be more difficult to defend. Therefore the authors believe there is a need to better recognise the role of case study research in the scientific process; and in light of recent development in participatory modelling to collectively re-evaluate how case study research contributes to the progression of scientific learning?

Managing sewer blockages represents a significant operational challenge for water utilities. In Australia, company-level blockage rates are used to compare the effectiveness of the management strategies of different utilities. Anecdotal evidence suggests this may not be a fair basis for comparison because blockages are influenced by a range of factors beyond management control and that vary from company to company. This issue was investigated as part of a broader research effort on sewer blockage management undertaken in conjunction with the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) and its members. A Web-based survey was used to collate expert opinion on factors that influence blockage rate. The identified factors were then investigated in an exploratory analysis of blockage-related data provided by two participating utilities, supported by literature reviews. The results indicate that blockage rate is influenced by a range of factors, including asset attributes, climatic conditions, water consumption, and soil type. Since these factors vary from utility to utility, this research supports the assertion that company-level blockage rate is not in itself an appropriate metric for comparing management effectiveness.

Decentralised water supply systems are becoming increasingly affordable and commonplace in Australia and have the potential to alleviate urban water shortages and reduce pollution into natural receiving marine and freshwater streams. Learning processes are necessary to support the efficient implementation of decentralised systems. These processes reveal the complex socio-technical and institutional factors to be considered when developing an enabling environment supporting decentralised water and wastewater servicing solutions. Critical to the technological transition towards established decentralised systems is the ability to create strategic and adaptive capacity to promote learning and dialogue. Learning processes require institutional mechanisms to ensure the lessons are incorporated into the formulation of policy and regulation, through constructive involvement of key government institutions. Engagement of stakeholders is essential to the enabling environment. Collaborative learning environments using systems analysis with communities (social learning) and adaptive management techniques are useful in refining and applying scientists' and managers' knowledge (knowledge management).

Water issues are inherently local and inter-dependent and almost fully reliant on the interaction between humans and their socio-technical environments. Hence, the development of water management policies requires evidence-based information that deals with complex, contextual and multi-faceted issues. Composite indicator methodologies have been found to be useful tools supporting policy development and decision making in several fields. Targeted water management decisions can benefit from indicator methodologies that combine statistical and qualitative information to assess water issues and rank the differing 'needs' of locations. However, due to limitations, we argue that indicator methodologies are best supported by a broader deliberative process of engagement, involving in-depth exploration of issues using inclusive and collective learning processes. In this paper, an integrative and deliberative process is described and applied to understand and evaluate watershed resources and management in the Tigum-Aganan watershed, Philippines. Collectively, local knowledge from stakeholders and quantitative information have been used in developing the water needs index, providing data and informing the selection of data sources for use in the index methodology. In subscribing to the exchange of descriptive narratives we achieve a greater degree of context dependence, transparency and stakeholder participation in the assessment process. Whilst our assessment of the usefulness of the composite methodology is subjective, we believe that the methodology shows great promise; in particular in supporting the emergence of collective action.

International governments continue to mobilize their resources to assist in attaining the United Nations Millennium Development Goals targets. The Australian government is contributing to the goals of improving access to good quality water and sanitation for the world's poorest people through strategic planning for the allocation of financial and technical resources. Evidence-based information will assist in developing investment strategies where local needs for water supplies and sanitation in diverse, often remote locations are difficult to ascertain and deliver. Water management is a contextual and multi-faceted issue and there is a need to simplify complex aspects of water management into a smaller number of dimensions of meaningful information. This research investigates methodologies that support the integration of statistical and qualitative data to inform decisions on targeted aid interventions. Indicator methodology inspired by the Water Poverty Index (WPI) has been used to assess water issues and rank water 'needs' of locations as a means of decision support. The choice of appropriate scale and inclusion of temporal and spatial variability of water supplies and demand is absolutely critical when understanding the usefulness of indicator methodology. There are, and will always be, many spatial information and thematic information gaps often relating to particular issues that need to be addressed. In reality, assessments are often deduced from a situational snapshot using available data and information. As such, it is important that limitations of an assessment are made apparent to stakeholders and potential users in order to address concerns, inform opinions and enable decisions to be based within the context of pertinent issues, rather than based solely on a modelled representation of reality. A number of lessons have emerged when using indicators to formulate 'water needs' including the; (i) importance of considering data reliability issues, (ii) inclusio