Addressing the adaptive challenges of alternative stormwater planning

Abstract

Municipal water sectors shift from building traditional grey stormwater infrastructure to ambitious plans for holistic blue-green infrastructure due to climate vulnerability. The shift requires new ways of thinking, working, and collaborating, and we need to understand and address the new planning challenges the shift creates. While existing stormwater literature explores a range of technical, institutional, and financial barriers to alternative stormwater implementation, we hold the shift requires a deeper understanding of holistic and flexible stormwater management approaches. In this context, we investigate adaptive challenges like norms, practices, uncertainty, and new ways of collaborating across sectors in alternative stormwater planning in Norway. The studied planning processes exemplify how the need for making stormwater measures legally binding in municipal planning changes work practices in municipal water sectors. A novelty of the paper is that it shows how water departments take leadership of formal planning processes and adopt the planning department's language and working methods. We find that the studied municipalities promote cross-sectoral collaborative approaches that create space for professional negotiation and mediation and invite a deeper understanding of other's interests and views. We hold that such approaches could contribute to more holistic and flexible planning approaches, securing long-term sustainable stormwater management.

Governance learning from collective actions for just climate adaptation in cities

“…The recognition of the need to adapt to climate change, and the shift from traditional stormwater management to naturebased solutions, has led the to a shift in governance practice Kvamsås (2021). In the fall of 2005, there were two landslide episodes in the city, which causes in total four lives.…”

“…Following the events, the municipality implemented new guidelines for stormwater management, ushering in a new paradigm in line with ideas of bluegreen structures and nature-based solutions (Groven, 2013). As Kvamsås (2021) shows, the shift to nature-based solutions has promoted cross-sectoral collaborative approaches in governance that created space for professional negotiation and mediation between professions, city departments and sectors.…”

Co‐benefits and conflicts in alternative stormwater planning: Blue versus green infrastructure?

“…Conceptualizing values as being held by individuals differs from conceptualizing them as socially constructed discursive practices used to legitimize society (Rosenberg, 2021) Bergen is a port city on the west coast of Norway with a strong identity as Europe's rainiest city (Bremer et al, 2020). Tromsø is a climatically subarctic city located in Northern Norway, experiencing challenges related to precipitation episodes combined with ice, snow and freezing ground (Kvamsås, 2021) In line with the Yin (2009) case study definition, the research involved investigating a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life contexts, acknowledging that the boundaries between phenomenon and context are unclear. The data come from observing policy planning processes, qualitative interviews with relevant planning actors, and a policy document analysis of two municipal sector plans for stormwater management.…”

From instrumentalization to commoning: A critical review of participation in urban nature-based solutions

“…Here the Commission emphasizes experimental approaches for innovation and continuous learning, institutional spaces for cross-sectoral dialogue, collaboration and public participation. As interventions are moved out of the domain of technical expertise to become issues of governance (Kvamsås, 2021;Kvamsås et al, 2021), it appears that some decision-makers are opening up different types of participation processes to attempt to improve transparency and legitimacy, gather information, stimulate creativity around the design of solutions, and foster social inclusivity (Puskás et al, 2021).…”

“…To Tzoulas et al (2021), the need to integrate both cooperative and competing interests in the implementation of NBS necessitates the creation of diverse decision-making arenas. Kvamsås (2021) argues that implementing NBS in ways that takes advance of the opportunity for co-benefits require cross-sectoral and inclusive decisionmaking that go beyond the technical solutions themselves.…”