Adaptive and Smart Cities: New Frontiers in Urban Water Management under Global Change

Urban areas are increasingly exposed to water-related risks driven by climate variability, rapid urbanization, demographic change, and aging infrastructure. Floods, droughts, water scarcity, and water quality deterioration are becoming more frequent and severe, challenging traditional centralized and sectoral approaches to urban water management. In response, cities worldwide are transitioning toward adaptive and smart water systems that integrate digital technologies, real-time data, and sensor-driven infrastructure to improve operational performance and resilience. Recent advances in smart metering, digital twins, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and automated network management are enabling cities to better anticipate, respond to, and learn from hydrological extremes and service disruptions. However, many cities still struggle to translate these innovations into robust, flexible, and equitable water-management strategies, often due to fragmented institutional arrangements, limited integration across water sectors, and insufficient consideration of how digital infrastructure interacts with urban planning and community needs.

This Research Topic aims to advance scientific understanding and practical solutions for smart and adaptive urban water infrastructure under global change. It seeks to bridge the gap between technological innovation and operational implementation by bringing together interdisciplinary research on digitally enabled urban water systems, adaptive infrastructure design, and water-sensitive urban planning. Contributions should explore how cities can harness smart water technologies to enhance resilience to hydrological extremes, improve water efficiency and service reliability, and support sustainable urban transitions. By showcasing technological advances, applied case studies, and novel methodological approaches, this collection aims to inform both science and practice, supporting evidence-based decision-making for urban water systems facing increasing uncertainty and complexity.

This Research Topic welcomes contributions aligned with the scope of Frontiers in Water, focused specifically on smart and adaptive urban water infrastructure and planning. We invite manuscripts addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Digital twins, sensor networks, and real-time monitoring for urban water distribution and drainage systems

• Smart metering, leak detection, and automated control of urban water networks

• Adaptive urban water infrastructure design for climate resilience

• Data-driven decision-support tools for urban flood and drought management

• Water-sensitive urban design and adaptive spatial planning for water resilience

• Integration of smart water systems with urban energy, transport, and communication infrastructure

• Performance assessment and benchmarking of smart urban water systems

• Institutional and operational challenges in deploying smart water technologies at city scale

We welcome Original Research Articles, Review Articles, Methods papers, and Case Studies that offer conceptual, methodological, or empirical advances. Contributions from both Global North and Global South contexts are encouraged, particularly those demonstrating transferable insights and practical relevance. Studies focused primarily on general nature-based solutions, broad water governance frameworks, or AI for hydrological prediction without a direct application to urban water infrastructure fall outside the scope of this Research Topic.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Smart Water Systems, Urban Water Management, Digital Twins, Adaptive Infrastructure, Climate Resilience

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.