Challenges include:

• Urban Transformation: Krong Kratié’s urban role redefinition amid rapid economic and social changes in Cambodia.
• Complex Water Needs: Challenges in meeting water-related basic needs due to dynamic urbanization and climate change.
• Limited Urban Planning: Insufficient focus on water-sensitive parameters in urban planning.
• Infrastructure Gaps: Lack of comprehensive infrastructure, including water supply, drainage, sewage, waste management, and green spaces.
• Sewage Issues: Concerns about deficient sewage management and its impact on health and the environment.
• Green Space Shortage: Insufficient green public spaces contributing to urban heat islands and environmental degradation.
• Underused Wetlands: The unrecognized value of wetlands for sustainable urbanization, infrastructure, and livelihoods.
• Community Engagement: The need to engage communities and investors in sustainable urbanization.
• National Dependency: Heavy reliance on national government decisions and resources despite decentralization policies.

In this regard, the study contains recommendations for action, such as:

• Embrace holistic urban planning, emphasizing balanced development with a focus on strategic water management.
• Strengthen flood resilience through effective drainage, wetland preservation, flow regime security, and vigilant monitoring.
• Utilize the lake area for flood management, biodiversity, and tourism while enhancing urban green spaces.
• Expand potable water connections, especially in underserved regions, to enhance water quality and reduce groundwater reliance.
• Consider decentralized wastewater treatment solutions, particularly in pollution-prone areas, with collaborative city sanitation planning.
• Improve waste management efficiency, extend landfill lifespan through waste separation and composting, and raise public awareness about waste.

This paper seeks to address these biases and studies factors that contribute to the (in)stability of socio-technical regimes. We argue that (de)stabilizing factors and the particular (in)stability configurations they form, must be scrutinised regardless of transition phase as they are ingrained in regime structures before transition processes become apparent. Identifying and characterizing (in)stability configurations and the seeds of destabilization can then support the development of contextualised transition governance strategies. Employing the building sector of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as an empirical case, this study differentiates sources of (in)stability from economic, socio-cultural and political-institutional dimensions. Our analysis suggests an ambiguous (in)stability configuration with tensions primarily within the socio-cultural and economic dimensions, and a dominance of stabilizing effects from the political-institutional dimension. The paper closes with implications for transition governance strategies and general arguments on the heterogeneity of transition contexts and regime constellations, particularly in countries of the Global South.

While grey infrastructure development is crucial for the development of Krong Kratié, alone it will not solve the existing and upcoming water challenges: Grey infrastructure can only meet a certain range of the Krong’s and peri-urban areas’ urban water management needs in addition to the challenges of long-term financing and sustainable operation as identified by the World Bank, for instance. What is required is the coordinated and integrated development of green-grey infrastructure. The Krong’s existing wealth of green infrastructure should be perceived as a strategic "asset" for infrastructure and urban development. However, the importance of these ‘natural’ areas for the city and its residents is little understood beyond being a source of supplementary income for many of the city’s poorer residents as reported during qualitative household conversations. The city's economic development and liveability is highly dependent on the sustainable management of its ecosystems and its water resources. These have come under pressure in the wake of increases in population and urbanization over the past century. Initially, population increases contributed to the loss of tall trees and vegetation in the urban area as timber was traditionally used for construction. Later modern building practices favouring the use of concrete contributed to the filling of low-lying urban areas and the loss of permeable
surfaces. Furthermore, these pressures may increase considerably due to the manifestations of the impacts of climate change. Currently, the Boeung Meleach and Boeung Kbal Dun Saong (lakes) behave as natural ecosystems providing a variety of benefits to citizens including evaporative cooling. Possible interventions in the future can decrease the goods and benefits provided by such ecosystems. Compared to other larger cities in Cambodia, such as Siem Reap and Battambang, the urban area of Krong Kratié has relatively little tree and vegetation cover, and along with building stock development and sealing, the city is heating up. The current low level of green spaces and shaded paths offer little opportunity for residents and tourists to spend time in the open, even during the daytime, limiting the types of activities and businesses that can take advantage of foot traffic. With a changing climate, negative impacts on public health and the loss of liveability and attractiveness of the city may further increase.

These developments will translate – if inappropriately managed – in to serious impacts on common and equal prosperity, public health, ecosystems and the livability of human settlements. The 86 villages of the Sleman Regency with its population of 1,125,804 residents (2020) face increasing water challenges in the context of increasingly dynamic urbanization. Water-related basic-needs services, inclusiveness and the livability of these increasingly urban villages must be ensured. The fundamental socio-economic, cultural, and environmental transformation of villages that is a daily experience already require new approaches to village or urban development and the management of local water resources. This is a challenge that will be intensified in view of the impacts of climate change. Located in the Special Region of Yogyakarta and in the Ngaglik sub-district of SlemanRegency, Sariharjo Village exemplifies the process of change in many parts of the Sleman Regency. As with many villages of the Regency, Sariharjo shows how a traditional agrarian social structure and water use patterns will become more urban posing significant challenges for sustainable water management. This dynamizing change has an increasing impact on the villages’ water resources. Challenges that may be even exacerbated by climate change impacts. Similar to the whole of Sleman Regency, Sariharjo is experiencing increasing pressure on its water resources.

The following is an overview of the key findings and derived from this, of strategic intervention areas for water-sensitive development of Sam Neua town.