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Phnom Penh, the capital of the Kingdom of Cambodia, lies on the confluence of the Mekong and the Tonle and Bassac rivers. These rivers are the main source of freshwater for the city’s population of about 1.3 million. Many of the Asian cities’ publicly managed water utilities perform below their potential. Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA) undertook major reforms and transformed a war-ravaged water utility into a commendable model that stands for other cities to emulate

This paper presents an overview of the benefits of urban groundwater use, together with some harmful and persistent problems that groundwater can present for urban development. This is a Perspectives Paper, meant to incite a discussion on important issues related to water and development.

Water security is under threat in urban areas. The very nature of urbanization contributes to water stress: rapid population growth, inadequate planning, pollution, poverty, and competing demands on the resource. This briefing note lays out the principles of integrated urban water management as a means to meet that threat. Briefing notes are two-page summaries on selected topics. They are prepared by GWP’s Global Secretariat and its partners.

This policy brief outlines how IUWM can provide a framework for planning, designing, and managing urban water systems. The brief also encourages policy makers to consider the water cycle as a whole when cities are being developed.Policy briefs provide policy makers with information on water resources management. They are written by the GWP Technical Committee, a group of internationally recognised professionals in integrated water resources management.

The Maltese islands experience acute water shortage as an area. To address this, leakage control has been developed to become a strategically important component for water resource management, and has been used to reach an optimum economic balance between water supply and water demand. The key lesson is that leakage management is an effective supply side action to increase efficiency in water use leading, and can be used as a strategic tool.