Stormwater Systems and Their Potential to Transform Cities

Abstract

Stormwater systems can improve public health and environmental and social conditions in cities, but their effectiveness may be blocked by fragmented project plans and lack of stakeholder support. Systems thinking and institutional analysis were used to assess how these barriers can be addressed and how stormwater systems can become agents of change to support livable and healthy cities. Projects and professional activities were studied to assess stakeholder involvement from low-to-high levels of power and interest in projects. Community stakeholders were developers and social entrepreneurs, government stakeholders included elected officials and staff, and support groups represented engineers, public agency facilitators, and urban planners. Stormwater projects and systems are a focus for engineers, but they often lose their stormwater identify when they are combined with other development projects. The workplace for such projects is the public arena, where cities seek aspirational goals by applying integration through comprehensive planning. However, development projects sometimes fail to comply with the plans. Stormwater may provide the spark for multi-purpose projects as cities must sustain conveyance corridors for connectivity of major flows. However, fragmented project development spurred by rigid capital improvement programs and lack of a path to develop stormwater system connectivity through comprehensive planning and development present barriers. Effective governance is the core issue, and most power is with elected officials, who require public support. The analysis shows need for a road map to utilize stakeholder power to promote stormwater advances by raising awareness and developing practical approaches that work in the spheres of comprehensive planning and capital improvement programming. The road map could be supported by an integrated body of knowledge to frame stormwater management as a combination of urban planning, engineering, and public administration and to encourage these communities to develop a cooperative road map through work among their professional associations.