Informal diffusion of green infrastructure innovations in Indian megacities: perspectives from innovators and potential future adopters

ABSTRACT

Five early-stage sustainable urban water management innovations in India are examined utilizing diffusion of Innovations theory. Cases are described using grey literature, surveys, and qualitative insights derived from interviews with innovators (N = 5). Potential future adopters (PFA’s) were also surveyed (N = 31), and their attitudes toward adoption is discussed. We identify alignments and misalignments between the goals, perceptions, adoption attitudes, and modes of communication between innovators and PFA’s. Innovators and PFA’s were largely aligned in their assessment of two innovation characteristics considered ‘most important’ (namely relative advantage and compatibility), but not aligned regarding simplicity (rated ‘most important’) or other ‘moderately important’ to ‘less important’ innovation characteristics (trialability, observability, and reinvention). We identify the role of communication channels between innovators and PFA’s, and suggest that innovators might work to better emphasize the simplicity of their approaches to maximize the likelihood of adoption. Finally, we identify opportunities for future research in this under-studied domain.

KEYWORDS:

• Diffusion of innovation
• green infrastructure
• megacity
• water
• informality
• upscaling

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all of the participants of this study for their time and insights. We also thank Dr. Robert Goodspeed for his early guidance and review of the research methods, and Professor Joan Nassauer for invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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