Urban water systems face increasing challenges, and there is a growing need for more robust, sustainable, and strategic management. How cities can transition to more sustainable water management has become a topic of considerable academic and practical interest. This thesis looks specifically at how urban water management (UWM) strategists work to drive these transitions and the factors that enable or inhibit the progress of sustainability transitions.

Urban transitions scholarship has investigated aspects of governance, future uncertainties, strategic agency, the importance of an overarching vision and institutional factors. However, it has not yet explicitly focused on the strategising practices and experiences of executives and senior managers working within the regime layer of UWM. The thesis addresses this critical knowledge gap by unpacking how executive-level actors operating within the regime can influence more sustainable urban water management (SUWM) through their strategic work. It brings strategy as practice and sustainability transitions scholarship together to provide novel insights into how UWM strategists work to devise strategies and make decisions that enable or inhibit sustainability transitions.

The study explores the historical progress of UWM transitions and the strategic work of UWM strategists in two cities – Ōtautahi|Christchurch, New Zealand, and Melbourne, Australia. Data were collected from interviews with 31 executives and senior managers working within the regime layer to examine their strategic practices, praxis and experiences. Historical and contemporary accounts of UWM strategies and the UWM strategists—their career histories, practices, and broader UWM experience—were reviewed in the context of UWM transitions in each city. Combining historical analysis and a strategy as practice lens revealed four significant themes regarding the work of UWM strategists: 1) how they undertake strategic practices and praxis, 2) the varied degrees of agency, 3) their relevant UWM (or related) professional expertise, and 4) the extent to which they engaged in collaborative learning. Melbourne has deliberately and successfully transitioned to more sustainable water management over the past two decades. The factors contributing to this successful transition included recognising the value of an overarching strategic vision to motivate UWM strategists across the city and appreciating and utilising the skills of boundary spanners, t-shaped professionals and SUWM champions. Interviewees demonstrated high confidence in strategising practices and praxis to the degree that many advised on UWM policies and regulations upwards to the State government. The norm was that UWM strategists had training and career experience in UWM or related fields and could activate that expertise across interdisciplinary forums. New knowledge of and strategies for SUWM emerged through collaborative learning between academic and research institutions and UWM organisations across Melbourne.

In Ōtautahi|Christchurch Indigenous values have informed strategic practices and praxis for surface and stormwater since the mid-1990s, driving progress in water sensitive urban design. However, those values have not transferred to drinking and wastewater management, and overall progress towards a water sensitive city has been limited. The study found UWM strategists in Ōtautahi|Christchurch were inhibited by managerialist norms, lacked an overarching UWM vision, and could not articulate nor demonstrate how they strategised. In New Zealand, the central government tends to disseminate UWM strategies. Therefore, UWM strategists saw their task as managing implementation rather than developing place-based strategies. UWM strategists believed they were effective in their high-level strategic roles because they could rely on operational experts for information without carrying the ‘weight’ of UWM technical knowledge. UWM strategists in Ōtautahi|Christchurch do not strategise inter-organisationally or look to other Australasian cities for applicable UWM strategies or ideas.

The novel combination of SaP and sustainability transitions perspectives applied in this research makes a methodological contribution by extending SaP beyond the business and private sectors to a broader, public sector, natural resource management context. SaP brings analytical focus to the UWM strategists and their situatedness, interests, experiences, perspectives, and ability to share knowledge in complex UWM regimes. This study advances sustainability research by providing a more detailed understanding of regime-level UWM strategists and how they can facilitate and work toward more water sensitive cities.