Abstract: The challenges of water resources sustainable development are
enormous in the Asian monsoon region. Meteorological behaviour in this region
is signified by its warm and moist winds, northwest monsoon, blowing from the
sea to the land during summer and bringing heavy rains in India and South East
Asia. On the contrary, the northeast monsoon occurs when cold and dry winter
air flows out of the interior of Asia from the northeast and bring the cool and
dry winter season. This unique cyclic behaviour often results in several months
of drought followed by a period of flooding, demanding robust water resources
management at regional as well as local scales. The objective of this study was
to assess water resources sustainable development for selected urban areas in
the Asian monsoon region during the last decade. Using centralized databases of
international agencies, for the period of 1993 to 1998, urban information
pertinent to water resources were collected, analyzed and modelled. The study
database consisted of information regarding urban water accessibility,
consumption, price, wastewater treatment, and other pertinent social,
environmental and economic indicators. Due to data inaccessibility,
incompleteness and missing, less than 20 cities from Bangladesh, Brunei, China,
India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Sri
Lanka, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam were selected for detailed analysis.
The statistical analyses for the selected cities showed interesting results and
relations in connection with urban water resources sustainable development of
Asian monsoon region. For the period of 1993 to 1998, elasticity of database
indicators were developed. Using elasticities, a composite urban water
resources sustainability index was suggested. The elasticities and index were
used in taxonomy of the selected cities, and reflected considerable variations
in urban water demand and supply development. The study confirmed the
significance of urban areas water resources sustainability challenges of the
21^{st} century for the Asian monsoon region.
