Community Involvement in the Implementation of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDSs): The Case of Bon Pastor, Barcelona

David Sauri,Andrea Nóblega Carriquiry,Hug March

doi:10.3390/su12020510

Abstract

The persistence of urban floods and the inability of aging sewage infrastructure to deal with stormwater make sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDSs) one of the emerging paradigms in urban water management, in which stormwater is no longer a hazard but a resource. Although most of the global research has been done on the technical aspects of SUDSs, their social impacts are not always taken into consideration. The neighborhood scale that characterizes SUDSs creates a different governance system—compared to the old structures of flood risk management—characterized by decentralization practices and where communities gain a better position of negotiation and new responsibilities. The objective of this research is to recognize how the diverse stakeholders involved in SUDSs interact with each other and to look into the different levels of understanding SUDSs as a new alternative of stormwater infrastructure. In order to accomplish this task, the paper introduces the case of the neighborhood of Bon Pastor (Barcelona, Spain), which has gone through urban transformations over the past years, promoting the development of SUDSs in 2012. Empirical evidence was obtained from 10 semi-structured interviews with government, technicians, social organizations, and local community citizens as well as revision of existing policy documents and grey literature on SUDSs and historical documents on the development of the neighborhood. The results show how active the community was during the design process and afterward, as sustainability gradually became one of the main topics in the neighborhood to be incorporated in new developments. However, it also unveiled several issues related to maintenance and the ambiguity of the term SUDS for the different stakeholders involved.

Highlights

Flash floods are increasing worldwide and continue to be a latent issue in Mediterranean cities, such as Barcelona (Spain), since its existing drainage infrastructure often experiences difficulties during some stormwater episodes [1,2]
This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on flood risk and urban stormwater management, looking into sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDSs) as an alternative in flood management with the potential to involve communities in more sustainable actions
Stakeholders Involved in El Bon Pastor SUDS: Their Roles and Relationships

Summary

Introduction

Flash floods are increasing worldwide and continue to be a latent issue in Mediterranean cities, such as Barcelona (Spain), since its existing drainage infrastructure often experiences difficulties during some stormwater episodes [1,2]. Researchers and practitioners are approaching this matter by defining a new paradigm that essentially consists in moving from flood defense to flood management [4,5,6,7,8,9,10] as a way of incorporating water as a resource in urban development. Under this framework, sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDSs) are an alternative approach to manage stormwater retention efficiently. SUDS are aligned with the three basic axes of sustainability: economy, environment and society” [11] (p. 6) (our translation)

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Results

Conclusion