Sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS): a neighbourhood scale approach for urban stormwater management. The case of Bon Pastor, Barcelona

Abstract

The increase of floods and the inability of aging sewage infrastructure to deal with stormwater retention led Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) to be one of the emerging paradigms for urban stormwater management, considering it no longer as a waste product but as a resource. Despite the fact that extensive research has been made on the technical aspects of the SUDS, there is hardly existing literature or research done in order to understand the impacts they have at a social level. The neighbourhood scale that characterizes the SUDS create a different governance system –compared to the old structures of flood risk management– where communities gain a better position of negotiation and new responsibilities. And, even though SUDS might not be popular along the general public, the social benefits they provide can create sustainable behaviours among inhabitants, and, when this becomes visible it breeds special interest towards SUDS. This master thesis objective is to recognize how the SUDS interact within the different stakeholders involved and to look into the different levels of understanding SUDS as new alternative of soft infrastructure. In order to accomplish this task, this work studies the case of Barcelona’s neighbourhood Bon Pastor, which had gone through urban transformations for the past years prompting the construction of a SUDS in 2012. Empirical evidence has been obtained from 10 semi structured interviews to government, technicians, social organizations and local community including questions on the different roles, the perception of SUDS and its impact. The results show how active the community was during the design process and afterwards, as sustainability gradually became one of the main topics in the neighbourhood to be incorporated in new developments.