Social Barriers and the Hiatus from Successful Green Stormwater Infrastructure Implementation across the US

Abstract

Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI), a nature-inspired, engineered stormwater management approach, has been increasingly implemented and studied especially over the last two decades. Though recent studies have elucidated the social benefits of GSI implementation in addition to its environmental and economic benefits, the social factors that influence its implementation remain under-explored thus, there remains a need to understand social barriers on decisions for GSI. This review draws interdisciplinary research attention to the connections between such social barriers and the potentially underlying cognitive biases that can influence rational decision making. Subsequently, this study reviewed the agent-based modeling (ABM) approach in decision support for promoting innovative strategies in water management for long-term resilience at an individual level. It is suggested that a collaborative and simultaneous effort in governance transitioning, public engagement, and adequate considerations of demographic constraints are crucial to successful GSI acceptance and implementation in the US.

Professional perceptions of participatory practices in green stormwater infrastructure development

“…These success lessons highlight several qualities suggested by literature as critical to GSI development: specifically addressing technical complexity, enhancing knowledge transfer, and supporting long-term stewardship [19,60]. More specifically, GSI projects' technical complexity underscores the importance of showing (e.g., via site runoff calculation demonstrations) instead of telling the community how stormwater issues can be addressed explicitly in their neighborhoods.…”

“…In addition, distinguishing needed vs. desired engagement activities for each phase when developing the engagement plan can help ensure a basic budget is allocated for essential activities [53]. Third, the frequently mentioned knowledge and perception challenges align with the abundant literature that characterizes perceptual and cognitive barriers as one of the most significant obstacles to GSI implementation [18,19]. The two top barriers reported here, i.e., the professionals' lack of knowledge of effective engagement mechanisms and the perceived inadequate public understanding of GSI benefits, emphasize the importance of best practice guidelines and training for professionals and broader and more effective science communication for the public [14,55].…”

“…These barriers are primarily rooted in the public's negative mindset and attitudes toward GSI, their lack of knowledge about green and gray infrastructure benefits and challenges, their perceived risk on cost and performance of GSI practices, and their reluctance to accept maintenance responsibility [18]. In this context, Qi & Barclay [19] suggest that inadequate research on social and cognitive barriers may explain the delayed progress in GSI adoption to the necessary level for sustainable stormwater management and long-term capacity building.…”

Mapping Public-Planner Conflicts in SUDS Implementation Using Cultural Dimensions—A Case Study

“…Sixteen studies on public attitudes towards SUDS and stormwater management measures were found, originating chiefly from the UK and the US. Four of the studies [55][56][57] were literature reviews. Qi and Barclay [55] and Feng and Nassauer [56] investigated social barriers to stormwater management implementation on the individual level.…”

Citizens’s perception on stormwater management and use of on-site stormwater detention in Belo Horizonte/Brazil

“…Most studies that investigated factors which influence the adoption (or not) of OSD and other source control techniques by residents have been carried out in developed countries (Kaplowitz & Lupi, 2012;Faehnle et al, 2014;Baptiste et al, 2015;Gao et al, 2016;Coleman et al, 2018;Derkzen et al, 2017). These surveys indicated that the willingness to adopt source control techniques will vary with socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge about the techniques, their benefits, operation and maintenance needs, governance and public engagement and may also be affected by economic incentives (Qi & Barclay, 2021). Furthermore, researchers (Baptiste, 2014;, Baptiste et al, 2015;Faehnle et al, 2014;Kaplowitz & Lupi, 2012) have indicated that citizens' experience should be incorporated as public participation into watershed planning processes.…”