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Abstract
This dissertation contributes to advancing the institutionalisation of integrated
urban stormwater management in pursuit of sustainable urban water
environments. It is now accepted that traditional approaches to managing urban
stormwater environments are unsustainable and that integrated approaches
reflecting an ecosystem-based approach need to be mobilised. However, the
implementation of this approach in practice remains consistently problematic.
Impediments are hypothesised to be related to the administrative inertia of local
management practices. This hypothesis is investigated through a multiple-case
study of eight local government organisations in Metropolitan Sydney by applying
the following research question – what factors generate institutional capacity in local government for facilitating integrated urban stormwater management?
Between mid-1999 and mid-2001 a state government program designed to reform local urban stormwater management practice chiefly through the collaborative preparation of integrated catchment management plans, provided an opportunity to collect empirical data on the capacities needed for facilitating an integrated management approach. Analysis of the program implementation revealed that this capacity could be measured in terms of a local management dynamic involving three mutually interdependent s heres of activity including the role of the stormwater officer, the intra-organisational context and the inter-organisational context.
The capacities important for facilitating a successful integrated urban stormwater management practice were found to relate to the capacity for organisational and cross-sectoral interaction as opposed to being mobilised by a top-down regulatory intervention. For this local organisational interaction the particular capacities of the local stormwater officer that were demonstrated to be important included the ability to facilitate an action-learning environment, relationship building and negotiation between players across the catchment. For the intra-organisational context it was essential that the organisation had political commitment to the management of the urban water environment as expressed through departmental management systems, a dedicated interdepartmental policy committee and dedicated organisational resources. For the inter-organisational context it was clearly demonstrated that the successful cases prioritised building and maintaining active relationships between organisations around environmental management. Based on these results a formative framework for the development of future local management capacity building methodologies concludes the dissertation.