Investments in innovative wastewater systems need to be financed through taxpayers’ money or water charges, depending on a country’s regulatory framework. In either case, citizens, who will eventually benefit from these investments, will have to bear the cost of these new investments.

Citizens’ attitudes, preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for upgrading wastewater infrastructures to cope with the effects from climate change has not been studied in-depth. The ALICE project is advancing research in this area by exploring the use of diverse methods, namely revealed preferences, stated preferences and experimental economics to explore social behaviour for the attributes of innovative urban wastewater systems. As many wastewater reuse projects have failed to win public acceptance, ALICE explores how “nudges” for behaviour change can facilitate the public acceptance of water reuse.