Sustainable urban stormwater management in developing countries: integrating strategies to overcome Brazilian barriers

ABSTRACT

Sustainable urban stormwater management (SUSM) is essential to urban sustainability. However, barriers to adopting it are observed even in places where SUSM is more widespread. Recent studies have evaluated strategies for overcoming some barriers. However, no study has systematically analyzed the strategies available for overcoming the most common barriers in developing countries. Thus, this article aimed to provide a literature review on these strategies. Ninety-two documents were evaluated, resulting in eight solution strategies, detailed by 80 implementation measures. The interrelationships among the solution strategies and their applicability to overcome the SUSM-related barriers were evaluated. This analysis showed that the solution strategies are interdependent, so it would be inefficient to adopt them in isolation. On the other hand, adopting a strategy can help overcome several barriers, also enhancing other strategies and urban issues. The availability of this systematized information can help to break through common barriers, optimizing efforts to adopt SUSM.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban drainage sustainability
• sustainable drainage solutions
• sustainable drainage barriers
• sustainable drainage challenges
• urban water resilience

Acknowledgements

This study was financed on part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001 and by PROAP-CAPES.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2021.1969415.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CAPES