UNSW Water Research Centre, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Integr Environ Assess Manag. 2012 Jan;8(1):183-93. doi: 10.1002/ieam.247. Epub 2011 Aug 24.
Water supply is a key consideration in sustainable urban planning. Ideally, detailed quantitative sustainability assessments are undertaken during the planning stage to inform the decision-making process. In reality, however, the significant time and cost associated with undertaking such detailed environmental and economic assessments is often cited as a barrier to wider implementation of these key decision support tools, particularly for decisions made at the local or regional government level. In an attempt to overcome this barrier of complexity, 4 water service providers in Melbourne, Australia, funded the development of a publicly available streamlined Environmental Sustainability Assessment Tool, which is aimed at a wide range of decision makers to assist them in broadening the type and number of water servicing options that can be considered for greenfield or backlog developments. The Environmental Sustainability Assessment Tool consists of a simple user interface and draws on life cycle inventory data to allow for rapid estimation of the environmental and economic performance of different water servicing scenarios. Scenario options can then be further prioritized by means of an interactive multicriteria analysis. The intent of this article is to identify the key issues to be considered in a streamlined sustainability assessment tool for the urban water industry, and to demonstrate the feasibility of generating accurate life cycle assessments and life cycle costings, using such a tool. We use a real-life case study example consisting of 3 separate scenarios for a planned urban development to show that this kind of tool can emulate life cycle assessments and life cycle costings outcomes obtained through more detailed studies. This simplified approach is aimed at supporting "sustainability thinking" early in the decision-making process, thereby encouraging more sustainable water and sewerage infrastructure solutions.
供水是可持续城市规划的关键考虑因素。理想情况下，在规划阶段应进行详细的定量可持续性评估，为决策过程提供信息。然而，实际上，由于进行此类详细的环境和经济评估所涉及的大量时间和成本，这些关键决策支持工具的广泛实施常常受到阻碍，尤其是在地方或地区政府一级做出决策时更是如此。为了克服这种复杂性障碍，澳大利亚墨尔本的 4 家供水服务提供商出资开发了一个公开的精简版环境可持续性评估工具，旨在面向广泛的决策者，帮助他们拓宽可用于新开发或积压开发项目的水务服务选择类型和数量。环境可持续性评估工具具有简单的用户界面，并利用生命周期清单数据来快速估算不同水务服务方案的环境和经济绩效。然后可以通过交互式多标准分析对方案选项进行进一步优先排序。本文的目的是确定精简版可持续性评估工具在城市水务行业中需要考虑的关键问题，并展示使用此类工具生成准确的生命周期评估和生命周期成本的可行性。我们使用一个由 3 个单独方案组成的实际案例研究示例，展示了这种工具可以模拟通过更详细研究获得的生命周期评估和生命周期成本结果。这种简化方法旨在支持决策过程早期的“可持续性思维”，从而鼓励更可持续的水和污水基础设施解决方案。
