Sustainable Water and Sanitation Governance: Aligning Policies, Institutions and Regulation
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Resources Management, Policy and Governance".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 August 2026 | Viewed by 2333
Special Issue Editors
Interests: climate change; water utilities; governance and regulation; operations research; MCDA and optimization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: water; regulation; benchmarking; public policies; policies–institutions–regulation framework; public–private partnerships; infrastructure
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
2. RCM2+, Universidade Lusófona, Campo Grande 376, 1749-024 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: inequalities in access to water; water security; evaluation of environmental public policies; sustainability indicators; data envelopment analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The public water supply and sanitation sector has undergone significant reforms in recent decades. However, many of these efforts have failed due to persistent challenges, including unimplemented policies, institutional weaknesses (such as poorly defined objectives, unclear responsibilities, weak enforcement, and lack of accountability), and regulatory models misaligned with national political and institutional contexts.
A key factor driving further changes is the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations. Among them, SDG 6 aims to achieve universal and equitable access to safe drinking water and sanitation while improving water quality by 2030. This global commitment underscores the need for suitable governance, namely by aligning political, institutional, and regulatory measures to create incentives that encourage stakeholders to work toward sustainable service provision. The previous PIR (Policies, Institutions, and Regulation) alignment offers a structured approach:
- Policies—which set the overarching goals and strategic directions.
- Institutions—the bodies and roles responsible for governance, implementation, enforcement of policies and regulations, and monitoring and evaluation.
- Regulation—the formalized roles and standards guiding institutional actions.
This Special Issue aims to compile papers that examine political, institutional, and regulatory dynamics influencing the effectiveness, equity, and sustainability of public water supply and sanitation services under different socio-economic, political, and institutional contexts towards achieving SDG 6.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- The role of regulation in achieving SDG 6;
- Barriers to PIR alignment that hinder SDG 6;
- Harmonizing regulatory incentives with other incentives for SDG 6;
- Institutional and political challenges in implementing SDG 6 policies;
- Innovative regulatory approaches for achieving SDG 6.
Dr. Francisco Silva Pinto
Prof. Dr. Rui Cunha Marques
Guest Editors
Dr. Tiago Balieiro Cetrulo
Guest Editor Assistant
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- SDG 6
- water governance
- PIR framework
- enabling environment
- policy implementation
- institutional settings
- water services regulation
- sustainable water management
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