DISES: Governing Green Stormwater Infrastructure for Just and Adaptive Urban Flood Management

Stormwater flooding is currently responsible for $9 billion in damage each year in the U.S., and the frequency and intensity of this flooding are expected to increase. Low-income communities are often disproportionately exposed to stormwater flooding events due to aging and inadequate infrastructure. Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) has the potential to contribute to effective solutions to stormwater flooding with many environmental co-benefits. However, there are gaps in technical knowledge that can make it difficult to effectively integrate GSI with traditional stormwater infrastructure and existing stormwater governance systems. This project will use a mix of engineering, policy, design, and community-based methods to generate new knowledge of the interactions between traditional infrastructure and GSI and the multi-jurisdictional decision-making best suited to evaluate new and adaptive stormwater management practices. The project focuses specifically on stormwater flooding in the Detroit Metropolitan Area, an older post-industrial region with aging stormwater infrastructure, a combined sewer system, and high levels of social and economic segregation. This research addresses the critical need to manage stormwater flood risk in ways that address socio-spatial inequalities. The findings will inform more effective and just approaches to incorporating Green Stormwater Infrastructure and managing stormwater flooding in other urbanized regions. The project will disseminate science- and community-driven recommendations and tools for stormwater managers, urban planners, community organizations, and city leaders, particularly those working in post-industrial or shrinking city contexts. The project will integrate multiple methods for studying social-environmental systems to examine the interactions between stormwater hydrology, green and gray infrastructures, community awareness and preferences, and decision-making about stormwater flooding. The project will incorporate novel sensor data into computational stormwater models to determine stormwater flood risk and optimize GSI locations best suited to reduce flooding. Municipal stormwater policies and resident surveys will provide new insight into the ways political and institutional context affect policy decisions and investments that drive inequitable exposure to stormwater flooding. Participatory research in case study neighborhoods will allow researchers to explore with communities GSI investment scenarios and tradeoffs they produce between flooding, justice, feasibility, and desirability. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.