Adelaide as a Sustainable City: Water Management in the Broader Context of Sustainability

The term `sustainable development' has been employed to denote alternatives to traditional patterns of physical, social and economic development in both developed and developing countries - alternatives that can mitigate environmental problems such as pollution, exhaustion of natural resources, overpopulation, loss of biodiversity, destruction of ecosystems and the deterioration of human living conditions. But there is also a long-standing tension between developed and developing country priorities in relation to sustainability. One might observe that some of the things which are seen as `needs' in a rich Australian city like Adelaide might be regarded as extravagant luxuries in Jakarta or Manila.