While a policy of more decentralized stormwater management is increasingly being
pursued in areas containing new housing developments, the question arises as to how stormwater
management is handled in existing settlements, where restructuring the drainage system is a much
more complex affair and often requires the active involvement of property owners. Recognizing that
the multidimensional objectives of stormwater management in settlements call for a range of local
strategies, this article examines the interaction and strategic contribution of two key municipal
institutions for regulating stormwater management, namely, compulsory connection and usage and
stormwater charges, in order to examine how they meet these objectives when property owners are
involved. The following questions are addressed: How do these two key institutions link the varied
objectives of stormwater management with practical options for decentralization? Which institutional
designs are capable of integrating property owners into a municipal stormwater strategy in a coherent
manner? What is current local government practice? This article begins by analyzing the interactions
between different objectives of stormwater management, the interplay of the two key institutions,
and options for stormwater management on private properties. On this basis, we then present an
empirical study of current practice in 44 medium to large cities in Germany. This shows that while local
governments devise very different—and often inconsistent—institutional designs, decentralization is
quite commonly pursued in existing settlements.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:84664 |
| Date | 11 April 2023 |
| Creators | Geyler, Stefan, Bedtke, Norman, Gawel, Erik |
| Publisher | MDPI |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 2071-1050, 5510 |
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