Impediments to Integrated Urban Stormwater Management: The Need for Institutional Reform |
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Authors: | Rebekah R Brown |
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Institution: | (1) School of Geography and Environmental ScienceThe Institute for Sustainable Water Resources, Monash University, PO Box 11a, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia |
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Abstract: | It is now well established that the traditional practice of urban stormwater management contributes to the degradation of
receiving waterways, and this practice was more recently critiqued for facilitating the wastage of a valuable water resource.
However, despite significant advances in alternative “integrated urban stormwater management” techniques and processes over
the last 20 years, wide-scale implementation has been limited. This problem is indicative of broader institutional impediments
that are beyond current concerns of strengthening technological and planning process expertise. Presented here is an analysis
of the institutionalization of urban stormwater management across Sydney with the objective of scoping institutional impediments
to more sustainable management approaches. The analysis reveals that the inertia with the public administration of urban stormwater
inherently privileges and perpetuates traditional stormwater management practices at implementation. This inertia is characterized
by historically entrained forms of technocratic institutional power and expertise, values and leadership, and structure and
jurisdiction posing significant impediments to change and the realization of integrated urban stormwater management. These
insights strongly point to the need for institutional change specifically directed at fostering horizontal integration of
the various functions of the existing administrative regime. This would need to be underpinned with capacity-building interventions
targeted at enabling a learning culture that values integration and participatory decision making. These insights also provide
guideposts for assessing the institutional and capacity development needs for improving urban water management practices in
other contexts. |
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Keywords: | Integrated urban stormwater management Implementation Institutional impediments |
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