Stormwater management: can we learn from others?

Abstract

While there is considerable amount of literature examining how and why American federal and state governments look for information and ideas, there is considerably less knowledge of how these processes operate at the local level. This is particularly true in the case of how ideas related to sustainable water management policies are found and used by local governments. This article attempts to open this area by examining where, how and to what purpose local agents engage in the transfer of low-impact development policies and techniques. This article is organised around four questions: (1) Is there a basic agreement about the pioneers in stormwater management; (2) Where did agents gather information; (3) Did this involve complex understanding; and (4) What emerged as key obstacles to the transfer and learning processes amongst the local authorities involved in this study?

Keywords:

• cross-national policy transfer
• low-impact development
• stormwater management
• urban sustainability

Notes

1. For good overviews of LID and stormwater management see: EPA 2000, Kloss and Calarusse 2006, Rutheford 2007; Staff of the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio Cincinnati, Ohio, and their respective legal counsel, 2007, NRDC 2006.

2. While these cover a range of policies and techniques they tend to be referred to in the USA as LID techniques and SUDS in Europe.

3. Note: European programmes have been initiated by or benefited from the European Water Framework Directive and Floods Directive.

4. Policy-makers in Seattle turned to Berlin's Biotopflaechenfaktor to inform in the development of the Seattle Green Factor programme (Keeley 2011).

5. See Appendix 1 for the questionnaire.

6. To code the data the authors developed what Miles and Huberman (1994) discuss as the ‘chain of evidence’, building on published material to develop the categories used to code and analyse the data. As part of this the authors looked for evidence related to either rationality or anarchy of the search by local agents for relevant LID policies; the filters, if there were any, influencing the transfer; and, the subsequent use of transferred information (Lofland 1971, Creswell 1998). This has been subsequently combined with a range of data relating to coherent themes that emerged in relation to the implementation and performance of LID stormwater management practices in government and NGO documentation.

7. While beyond the scope of this article, it should be stressed that these are particularly interesting given the acknowledged bias within our sample.

8. Though an in-depth study of the nature of consultant deliverables is beyond the scope of our study, it is worth stressing that roll of consultants in the data gathering process should call attention to the quality and types of information being transfered between municipal governments in the area of LID principles. First, while consultants can provide high quality data and information sessions, the general nature of the firms being used, the tailored nature of the information requested and the packages being provided, would (without further investigation) appear to provide for a substantially lower quality of learning than has been seen in situations where a truly free flow of information occur between jurisdictions that are in direct contact with each other. Second, even with the best intentions, bias is going to be introduced though the consultation process.

9. Some stormwater managers surveyed may not be able to see past the BMPs in question to look at administrative and policy issues, even though we are finding the latter to be major barriers to improved stormwater management.

10. This belief can be seen in the works of Lipset (1996), who argues that many of the policy makers in the USA consider the USA ‘exceptional’ because of its anti-statist, individualistic and anti-egalitarian culture.