Evaluation of Sustainability Index for Urban Water Management System in Macau

Abstract

Sustainable development of urban water management system is a challenging topic worldwide. Macau is a city which lacks of raw water resources and experiences high pressure in population and economic growth for the recent years. In this study, an evaluation of sustainability index of urban water has been established. It first starts with a general overview for the current urban water situation in Macau, and follows by the analysis of sustainability index using eighteen sustainability indicators from four dimensions, namely social, namely the perspectives of social, economic, environmental and engineering. The evaluation is mainly based on the equal weighting method, while CRITIC method and AHP method are further adopted in this study to conduct a more comprehensive discussion.

Results from the three weighting methods demonstrate that the latest overall urban water sustainability index is in range of 0.55 to 0.65, which is consistent with moderate sustainable level. Deeper consideration is conducted from four dimensions which can be found out that the social dimension maintained relatively high level, the economic dimension experienced instability, while environmental and engineering dimensions have declining tendency during the investigated time period.

From the study, it can be concluded that the sustainability index is effective to provide an overall view about the level of sustainable development of urban water system in Macau. The sustainability index increases gradually in the recent year which implies a move towards sustainable development. Environmental dimension, with the lowest index among all four dimensions, has higher potential of improvement. Further research and the implement in sustainable urban water strategy are necessary in achieving the goal of the sustainable development in Macau.