Stormwater Governance and Future Cities

Abstract

Urban stormwater infrastructure traditionally promoted conveyance. Cities are increasingly designing stormwater infrastructure that integrates both conveyance and infiltration in hybrid systems to achieve public health, safety, environmental, and social goals. In addition, cities face decisions about distribution of responsibilities for stormwater management and maintenance between institutions and landowners. Hybrid governance structures combine centralized and distributed management to facilitate planning, operations, funding, and maintenance. Effective governance in any management approach will require changes in the expertise of stormwater agencies. Recognizing the distinction between hybrid infrastructure and hybrid governance is important in long-term planning decisions for construction and management of stormwater systems. A framework is presented that relates the level and type of existing stormwater infrastructure with available capital, institutional development, and predominant citizen contributions. Cities with extensive existing infrastructure are increasingly integrating distributed, "green" approaches that promote infiltration, and must improve institutional expertise for governance decisions. For cities with little existing infrastructure, landowner management often dominates, especially when municipalities cannot keep pace with rapid growth. In between, rapidly industrializing cities are positioned to use growing capital resources to fund both conveyance and infiltration measures based on current design principles. For all cities, local management innovations, including decisions regarding public engagement, will be critical in shaping future urban stormwater systems.

Green Infrastructure, Grey Epistemologies, and the Urban Political Ecology of Pittsburgh's Water Governance

“…Under scrutiny is the metropolitan region's sewage and water conveyance systems, which must be updated to help meet federal, state, and local requirements. Much like other cities around the country (Karvonen ; Keeley et al ; Meehan and Rice ; Porse ), this effort comes with significant costs related to infrastructure improvement, which is largely borne by local ratepayers.…”

“…A grey epistemology was the driver behind the unsuccessful $2–4 billion proposal ALCOSAN submitted to the EPA in 2013 to meet the Consent Decree terms. The proposal put forth by ALCOSAN and its contracted consultants, better known as the Wet Weather Plan (WWP), largely rests on grey infrastructure and the epistemological community of conservative and risk‐averse water utilities and engineering firms (Herrick and Pratt ; Porse ). Because of the WWP's grey infrastructure approach, some community stakeholders have pushed back, presenting GI as an alternative technology that would bring water to the surface, potentially democratizing the opportunity to capitalize on a large infrastructure improvement project that could distribute benefits more evenly across the community through capital spending, job creation, improved communities (via expanded green space), and associated economic growth.…”

Sustainability

“…(Gomez-Baggethun and Barton, 2013)] considering the spatial distribution of green infrastructure , ecological networks and corridors (Andrade et al, 2013;Hepcan, 2013;Marcucci and Jordan, 2013;Mikkonen and Moilanen, 2013;Patru-Stupariu et al, 2013), urban-rural gradients (Barbati et al, 2013), street trees (Seamans, 2013), and urban forests (Young, 2013), land use in non-urbanized areas (La Rosa and Privitera, 2013), energy and economic performance under future climate conditions (Chan and Chow, 2013), opportunity costs of not investing in GI (Schaeffler and Swilling, 2013), stormwater management and carbon sequestration (Charlesworth et al, 2013), socio-economic factors and human well-being , human well-being (Andrade et al, 2013;Angelstam et al, 2013), carbon sequestration and noise attenuation (Gratani and Varone, 2013), carbon sequestration , hydrologic, water quality and ecological factors (Welker et al, 2013), public heatlh, safety, environmental and social goals (Porse, 2013) and sustainability (Newell et al, 2013).…”

Synthetic Scenarios from CMIP5 Model Simulations for Climate Change Impact Assessments in Managed Ecosystems and Water Resources: Case Study in South Asian Countries

“…Addressing the consequences of climate change for adaptive and/or mitigative management is now high on the list of priorities for funding agencies (Anandhi, 2015), particularly in developed countries. However, funding is a significant challenge in many Asian cities (Porse, 2013) and developing countries. In many Asian cities, in a time of shrinking public budgets, increasing urban population, and a changing variable climate, water managers must weigh funding among different goals (Porse, 2013).…”

“…However, funding is a significant challenge in many Asian cities (Porse, 2013) and developing countries. In many Asian cities, in a time of shrinking public budgets, increasing urban population, and a changing variable climate, water managers must weigh funding among different goals (Porse, 2013).…”