Governance Assessment of the Flood’s Infrastructure Policy in San Pedro Cholula, Mexico: Potential for a Leapfrog to Water Sensitive

Abstract

Climate change together with population growth and land-use change have increased the risk of urban floods. Urban floods cause severe damages to cities and their inhabitants, and they are expected to increase over time. Consequently, urban adaptation is required to shift from traditional infrastructure (grey) to multifunctional infrastructure (blue-green) for improved flood management. Until recently, studies on the role and adoption of blue-green infrastructure have centered around large cities in developed countries, including Melbourne and Rotterdam, among others. Meanwhile, middle-sized cities in developing countries have received less attention. According to the Urban Water Management Transition Framework (UWMTF), cities in developing countries can learn from the experiences of developed cities and leapfrog to more 'water sensitive' practices. Although leapfrogging is context-dependent, our understanding of factors that support leapfrogging remains embryonic. This paper contributes to the scholarly understanding of the governance factors that support and limit leapfrogging. By applying the Governance Assessment Tool through semi-structured interviews and reviewing secondary data, this research assessed the implementation of flood protection infrastructure in San Pedro Cholula, a middle size city of Mexico. This work found the most supportive quality for delivering multifunctional infrastructure, was the extent of the governance system. The governance support extent was rated as moderate-low considering the platform for change is limited to government actors, which has further reinforced traditional approaches to infrastructure. In addition, the necessary governance features of coherence, flexibility and intensity were assessed as constraining change, with flexibility being the least supportive governance factor and ultimately hindering social actors' participation and innovation. While the contemporary governance arrangements of San Pedro Cholula are not yet conducive to promoting a leapfrog in the delivery of urban flood infrastructure, the analysis has pointed to three catalytic factors to underpin a leapfrogging situation: trans-disciplinary science; cross-sector partnerships; and, innovation experiments.

Challenges of Water Sensitive Cities in Mexico: The Case of the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara

“…The focus of this study relies on the analysis of the water management challenges in the MAG. The challenges of the MAG are not unique, on the contrary, they are similar to those that can be found in other metropolitan areas in Mexico such as Puebla, Monterrey, or Mexico City [17,19,30]. Our study can help to set the main causes of the problematic and define the solutions based on WSUD approach and Water Sensitive City theory [30].…”

“…However, in the case of Mexico academic research considering a WSUD approach is still limited. Among the few studied cities are Mexico City [14][15][16], San Pedro Cholula [17], and Mineral de la Reforma [18]. Considering the embryonic state of this topic in Mexico and that 78% of the Mexican population lives in cities, this research aims to contribute to the WSC and WSUD literature, by focusing in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara (MAG).…”

The Value of Urban Flood Modeling

“…UFM is primarily conduced on an as‐needed basis at the city scale, in the absence of broad institutional support and regulatory mandates. Additionally, even within cities, governance is often fragmented with no single entity in charge of urban flooding (Casiano Flores et al., 2019). This fragmentation presents challenges for obtaining funding, accessing cross‐jurisdictional data, and institutionalization of UFM results into flood mitigation practices (Rosenzweig et al., 2019).…”

From “Government to Governance”? A Systematic Literature Review of Research for Urban Green Infrastructure Management in Latin America

“…There appeared to be a directional push within the literature toward cooperative governance mechanisms; despite the dominance of local state actors within the initiatives and cases addressed, a large number of the publications criticized top-down management practices (González and Guillen, 2015;Babilonia et al, 2018) and lack of participation (Pérez-Medina and López-Falfán, 2015, p. 23;Flores et al, 2019) and called for the inclusion of non-state actors (Flores-Xolocotzi, 2012; Barroso and Mesquita, 2014). Chelleri et al (2016) spoke of increasing interest in participatory and bottom-up management practices in the region, as a direct result of technological advances that have meant better dissemination of information and the rise of online communities (p. 2).…”

“…The benefits of successful governance for UGI mentioned in the research found included environmental education (Ferrer et al, 2010;Barroso and Mesquita, 2014;Costa Cardoso et al, 2015;Benchimol et al, 2017;Pabello and Nasupcialy, 2019), recreational opportunities and tourism (Sanchotene, 1994;García and Guerrero, 2006;Guerrero and Culós, 2007;Flores-Xolocotzi and González-Guillén, 2010), investment (Flores-Xolocotzi, 2012;Babilonia et al, 2018), easing the transition of the urban-rural interface (Gurovich Weisman, 2003), and environmental benefits such as climate change adaptation and reduced flood risks (Granados-Olivas et al, 2016;Millington, 2018;Flores et al, 2019;Giner et al, 2019). Nail and Erazo (2018) made the case for state-initiated self-governance initiatives for post-conflict peace building, a link between UGI and social capital that was also made by Ferrer et al (2010), Costa Cardoso et al (2015), Sánchez (2019), and Visoni and Nagib (2019, p. 88).…”