Blue-Green Infrastructure on the Move:

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STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2020

Blue-Green Infrastructure on the Move:

How Resilience Concepts Travel Between Cities

Blå-grön infrastruktur i farten:

Hur motståndskraftskonceptet färdas mellan städer

SUTTHI SUTEERASAN

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE

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Blue-Green Infrastructure on the Move

How Resilience Concepts Travel Between Cities

SUTTHI SUTEERASAN

Supervisor Andrew Karvonen Examiner Tigran Haas

KTH MSc Thesis AG212X Degree Project in Urban and Regional Planning Master’s in Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Infrastructure December 2020

Artwork: Stockholm Film Collage by Maia Cavendish

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Abstract

Over the past decades, the fast-changing global climate poses a significant challenge to many cities around the world to embrace resilience concepts, whereby a safe-to-fail planning approach replaces traditional fail-safe practices. The change in perspectives has seen an increase in climate-adapted infrastructural projects being integrated with the new urban planning agendas across the world. The investigation conducted was designed to understand the process of how resilience concepts travel between different cities, by investigating the actors who move policy knowledge, their roles in it, as well as the knowledge transfer process mechanism that is responsible for the movement of such policies. The investigation took advantage of a scoping study technique to answer the research questions, using mostly secondary data and an interview to verify the secondary sources. The findings and the discussion provided insights on who is involved in resilience policies and how these policies are transferred from one place to another. The investigation uncovered the influence policy mobilizers has on the movement of policy knowledge, as well as how the mobilization of policy knowledge can both be beneficial or detrimental, depending on the way it was moved or implemented.

Keywords

Policy Mobility, Knowledge Transfer, Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI), Climate-Adapted Infrastructure, Climate Change Adaptation, Urban Resilience, Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS), Low Impact Development (LID)

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Sammanfattning

Under de senaste decennierna utgör det snabba föränderliga globala klimatet en betydande utmaning för många städer runt om i världen med att anamma motståndskraftskoncept, där en planeringsstrategi med säkerhet att misslyckas ersätter traditionella felsäkra metoder. Förändringen i perspektiv har ökat klimatanpassade infrastrukturprojekten som integrerats med nya stadsplaneringsagendorna över hela världen. Studien genomfördes för att få en förståelse av hur motståndskraftskonceptet färdas mellan olika städer och detta genomfördes genom att undersöka de aktörer som förflyttar politisk kunskap och deras roller i den samt den kunskapsöverföringsmekanism som är ansvarig för rörelsen av sådan politik. Studien utnyttjade en scoping-studieteknik för att få svar på forskningsfrågorna, med mestadels sekundär data och en intervju för att verifiera sekundärkällorna. Resultaten och diskussionen gav insikter om vem som är inblandad i motståndskraft och hur policy överförs från en plats till en annan. Studien avslöjade även inflytande av politiskt mobilisering och kunskap som både kan vara fördelaktig eller skadlig beroende på hur den flyttades eller genomfördes.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to dedicate this space for the healthcare workers across the world, who are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, and to those who have lost their loved one to this unfortunate reality. Expression of empathy also extends out to those who are dealing with mental health issues. If you ever feel like you are moving in a vacuum, remember to reach out to your friends, family, or closest health clinics.

This thesis wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the support of my family, friends, and those who I hold close to my heart. To my KTH friends and those who I met along the way throughout this wonderful journey in Europe - you have welcomed me with arms wide open, and you have made me a home away from home.

Lastly, I would like to extend my utmost gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Andrew Karvonen, for guiding me through this thesis research and providing me with exceptional insights into the field of urban politics. Andy has been nothing short but understanding, easy-going, attentive, and patient throughout this entire thesis journey. His feedbacks and comments have been immensely valuable, and if it weren’t for him, this thesis would not have been completed. Thank you very much, Andy, I truly appreciate your support.

Sutthi Suteerasan

Stockholm, December 2020

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List of Tables and Figures

Table 1: List of keywords for identifying relevant studies Table 2: ATLAS.ti Codes

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Figure 1: Recommendations for implementing BGI Figure 2: The SuDS management train

Figure 3: Images of London Road in Leicester, UK (left), and Pacific Quay Development Site in Glasgow, UK (right)

Figure 4: Cloudburst event of July 2nd, 2011, Copenhagen, Denmark

Figure 5: Examples of Cloudburst Planning by City of Copenhagen and their Cloudburst Toolbox developed by their partnership with Rambøll

Figure 6: Policy mobilizers

Figure 7: Knowledge transfer process Figure 8: The knowledge spiral

Figure 9: Horizontal and vertical pathways to scaling-up initiatives Figure 10: Code tagging on interview script

Figure 11: Code tagging on secondary data source

Figure 12: Policy mobilizers vs. stages of knowledge transfer Figure 13: Data vs. stages of Knowledge Transfer

Figure 14: The relationship between policy mobilizers and the first stage of knowledge transfer Figure 15: Rambøll’s Cloudburst formula for blue-green solutions and the interdisciplinary approach

to public-private collaboration (Rambøll, 2016).

Figure 16: The relationship between policy mobilizers and the second stage of knowledge transfer Figure 17: The relationship between policy mobilizers and the third stage of knowledge transfer.

Figure 18: Working collaboration between Rambøll and NYCEP

Figure 19: The relationship between policy mobilizers and the fourth stage of knowledge transfer Figure 20: 4-step approach to Cloudburst Resiliency Plan, NYC

Figure 21: Cloudburst catchment map of Copenhagen

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Nomenclature

BGI Blue-Green Infrastructure BMP Best Management Practices CCAP Climate Change Adaptation Plan CHP Copenhagen

CMP Cloudburst Management Plan

ESRI Environmental Systems Research Institute GIS Geographical Information System

GPA Global Policy Actor

INF Informational Infrastructure

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change KK Københavns Kommune (City of Copenhagen) LCUD Low-carbon Urban Development

LCUIs Low-carbon Urban Initiatives LID Low Impact Development LPA Local Policy Actor

NGO Non-Governmental Organization NSCN Nordic Smart City Network NYC New York City

NYCEP New York City Department of Environmental Protection NYCHA New York City Housing Authority

SuDS Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems SWS Storm Water Solutions

UNISDR United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction USD U.S. Dollar

WSUD Water Sensitive Urban Design

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1. Introduction

It is intriguing to think about how policy knowledge around the world came to be how it is, and how it fits into the context of where it lands. This thesis research started with this very fundamental question regarding how policies that are related to sustainable urban practices came into being and how they travel around the world, taking different shapes and forms according to their respective destination, sometimes familiar to their original relative, and sometimes, peculiarly different in every aspect and form.

The idea of knowledge policies travelling across boundaries has emerged since the first global economy of the late 1800s and has re-emerged during the second global economy from the 1970s onwards (Phelps, 2017). According to Bunnell (2015), this was the point in history where national and urban policies travelled with “multiple mechanisms or modes of power”, and during this process, were translated, adapted, and modified to the point that it was hard to recognize their origins.

Nowadays, in the 21st century, it is no surprise that our ultra-globalized and hyper- interconnected world includes new ways in which policy knowledge jumps from place to place around the world. However, as pointed out by Prince (2020), even though cities around the world have become highly connected, there is still an emphasis on specific cities that produce and justify policy ideas and provide knowledge leadership for other cities around the world. This includes cities such as Vancouver, Singapore, and more recently, Copenhagen (ibid.).

It is through the curiosity of how these concepts of urban policies, especially relating to the concepts of resilience, travel between cities, that the following research questions were developed:

1. Who are the policy mobilizers of resilience concepts, and what are their roles in it?

2. How do resilience concepts travel between cities?

To explore these questions, this thesis used the Cloudburst Management Programme (CMP) in Copenhagen, Denmark as a case study to understand how resilience policies are created and mobilized. The next chapter presents background material on resilience policies, followed by a theoretical framework on policy mobility. The methodology chapter describes how the research questions were addressed a desk-based study and interview about CMP. The findings and the discussion provide insights on who is involved in resilience policies and how these policies are transferred to other places. The thesis concludes with the understanding of how knowledge can be appropriately mobilized, as well the roles each mobilizer plays within the mechanism of knowledge transfer.

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2. Background

The background chapter covers the changing global climate and the influence it has on urban vulnerability. This is followed by the background of concepts related to urban resilience and climate-adapted infrastructure. Specifically, the notion of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS) is introduced before describing Copenhagen’s Cloudburst Management Plan (CMP) and its background.

2.1 Climate Change and Urban Vulnerability

Over the past several decades, the most pressing issue for the continued existence of humanity has been boiled down to how we must deal with the fast-changing climate change. The changing global climate poses a significant challenge to many cities around the world due to numerous extreme weather events including droughts and heavy rainfalls (Wachsmuth & Angelo, 2018; Huck & Monstadt 2019). The higher frequency of extreme weather patterns across the world exposes cities to damages caused by primary and secondary impacts. Primary impacts include strong winds, storm surges, and heavy rainfall that cause flooding, while secondary impacts include disruption to essential services such as energy, water, sanitation, and transportation infrastructure (Graham, 2010; Little, 2010).

It is commonly understood that urban vulnerability to extreme climate events involves the risk of infrastructural failure (Monstadt & Schmidt, 2019). According to Huck and Monstadt (2019) “cities are geographical nodes in infrastructurally mediated flows as they accommodate high densities of people.” The failure of any urban services can bring about many other far-reaching problems. For example, an electrical blackout of a city can damage the local economy, other infrastructure services, and have detrimental effects on the natural and built environment of the city (Chelleri et al., 2012). The consequences of such events can leave the city inhabitant exposed to constant risks, and hence, create unwanted capital costs and even lead to decay of urban spaces.

Over the past several decades, there has been an enormous shift in our understanding of the natural world. The view that natural world is something human settlements must conquer and overcome has been replaced with an acceptance of change and the recognition that society needs to adjust to the course of nature. One of the most influential concepts with respect to cities and nature is resilience. This concept is defined as the way cities can build themselves to deal with shocks and stresses resulting from extreme climate events (Lu& Stead, 2013; Hernantes et al., 2019).

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2.2 Urban Resilience and Blue-Green Infrastructure

Today, there is abundant evidence from climate change research regarding the over consumption of resources, the loss of biodiversity, the over-emission of greenhouse gases, and land use change. This evidence points towards the unsustainable trends of urban development that pushes the planet beyond its ecological boundaries (Rockström et al., 2009; Chelleri et al., 2012; Albers & Deppish, 2013). It is through these realizations that cities around the world are proactively developing and investing in urban adaptation plans that involve the implementation of blue-green infrastructure to increase resilience as it relates to extreme change in climate patterns. Adaptation can be defined as a

“process of making appropriate changes to better cope with climate uncertainties or to reduce its negative effects” (Surjan et al., 2011),

The concept of resilience was first used by engineers and physical scientists. It was not until the 1960s that the concept of resilience was first used by ecological scientists before becoming a prominent in the 1970s (Lindseth, 2011; Surjan et al., 2011; Huck and Monstadt, 2019). In the 1990s, the inherent social, institutional, and material frameworks of resilience gained significant attention. This was mostly due to the heightened awareness of global climate change (Lu & Stead, 2013; Huck & Monstadt, 2019). Over time, the initial focus on robustness, stability, protection, prevention, and recovery from crises shifted to the notions of proactivity, adaptability, and flexibility. This is where the mentality of how we deal with the natural world shifted from “fail-safe to safe-to-fail”

(Ahern, 2011; Bach et al., 2014).

Today, ‘resilience’ continues to evolve as a concept and is frequently edited and interpreted depending on which field the user is in. However, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ‘resilience’ can be defined as a

“capacity of social, economic and environmental systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain their essential function, identity and structure, while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning and transformation” (IPCC, 2014). The concept is further defined by the UNISDR (2009) as the ability for the community to ‘spring back from a shock’ that usually is determined by the degree of necessary resources for the community has prepared before and during a time of need.

Meanwhile, the term Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI), as the name suggests, is a hybrid of the blue (water) and the green (nature) infrastructure networks that includes vegetation, soils, and natural ecosystems (C40 Cities, 2016). Haghighatafshar et al. (2014) define Blue-Green infrastructure as a storm drainage technique that combines three of the following aspects: 1) hydraulic control of stormwater flows, 2) control of stormwater quality including organics, pathogens, micro-pollutants, and heavy metals, and 3) added value

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of the system, such as aesthetics that contribute to a healthy and attractive urban landscape, as well as the overall biological diversity of cities.

According to Brears (2018), a key aspect of BGI is its “multifunctionality, specifically its ability to perform several functions and provide benefits within the same spatial area.” Its flexibility in harnessing the interrelationship between vegetation and the water cycle that improves the living quality in a city also help to enhance the sustainable development.

The benefits of BGI can be break down into three main areas, these are the economic benefits, the environmental benefits, and the social benefits. The economic benefits of BGI projects are such as the increased in investment, employment, land and property values, as well as the cost reduction in water treatment and landscape maintenance. The environmental benefits may include the reduction of flood risk, delayed stormwater runoff volumes, stormwater pollutant and sewer overflow events. The promotion of BGI can also positively enhance the surrounding habitat gain, increase groundwater recharge, and promote carbon sequestration. Lastly, the social benefits that comes with BGI are such as the improved levels of physical activity, mental well-being, social interaction, inclusion and cohesion, all of which helps to promote a better living quality and help to reduce health and social inequality of the city.

Figure 1: Recommendations for implementing BGI (Rambøll, 2016)

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Recommended by Rambøll (2016), there are seven key components to which decision- makers need to be aware for a successful implementation of BGI to take place. As shown in figure 1, these seven key components include a strong vision and innovation, structural capacity, opportunities, basic conditions, financing, skills and knowledge, and cultural capacity. These seven key components make up the key aspects to which the recommendation to a city is given. For example, if the knowledge of BGI is rare or unknown for a city, it is recommended that a strong vision should be use as an engine for change, as well as a strong structural and cultural capacity through the use of citizen mobilization such as drawing on the direct support of networks of professionals and civil society, involvement of the affected communities, and enabling partners to support and strengthen BGI advocacy.

In the face of growing environmental threats on human settlements that are particularly linked to climate change, policymakers around the world are starting to look for more robust urban solutions to minimize disruptions and to rapidly recover from extreme climate impacts (Wachsmuth & Angelo, 2018; Rosenzweig et al., 2019) It is through these concepts of climate adaptation, resilience, and blue-green infrastructure, that the Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems has emerged, as described in the next section.

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2.3 Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS)

In the last few decades, there has been a heightened awareness on how urban environment should respond to the growing pressures of climate change. Along with the cultural shift of how cities should become a place where it is ‘safe-to-fail,’ society’s interaction with urban water infrastructure has also been challenged and has changed over time. Fletcher et al. (2015) suggest that the historic narrow focus of reducing flooding in urban areas has gradually been replaced with a broader understanding of how urban drainage and the urban water cycle can be reimagined through designs and decision- making processes to benefit both humans and nature.

The cultural shift in how society views urban water has been significant. The perspective that urban drainage presents problems has rapidly shifted to focus on the opportunities that it presents. This shift has brought about a rapid adoption that was in part, due to the realization by local governments that the traditional stormwater management was not suitable in safeguarding ecologically sensitive biodiversity of urban and rural greenery (Clar et al., 2015). Thus, with the development driven largely at the local and regional levels, the terminology that are used to describe the resilient-based, climate-adapted, urban drainage infrastructure, has come about in a more informal manner (Fletcher et al., 2015).

Many terms have been introduced around the world to define similar concepts. These include ‘Water Sensitive Urban Design’ (WSUD) in Australia, Low Impact Development (LID) in the United States, and Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS) in the UK and Northern Europe (Karvonen, 2011; Fletcher et al., 2015; Jainer, 2020). It should be noted that due to the applicability of ‘sustainability’ in drainage systems in both urban and rural settings, the word ‘urban’ is left as a lowercase letter in the abbreviation, SuDS, to signify that it can be substituted with other scales (Fletcher et al., 2015). Since this thesis research is conducted in Europe, the term SuDS will be used throughout the study.

Figure 2: The SuDS management train (Grant, 2016)

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One of the most prominent features of SuDS is its promotion of an ecosystem service- based approach to urban stormwater management that diverges significantly from the traditional sewer-based urban drainage systems (Lähde et al., 2019). The features that are widely seen in all SuDS developments include source control, site control, conveyance, and regional control (see Figure 2). These factors comprise the SuDS management train and include smaller elements such as green roofs, rain gardens, permeable paving, swales, ditches, and even large floodable recreational area (Monberg et al., 2018; Lähde et al., 2019).

According to Coffman (n.d.), the fundamental goal of SuDS is “to engineer a site with as much small-scale retention, detention, prevention, and treatment techniques as needed to achieve the functional hydrologic equivalent to predevelopment conditions.” The approach involves is a combination of ecological science and engineering practice whereby the emphasis of the stormwater management is shifted from hydraulics to hydrology. This shifts the focus from the storage and treatment of stormwater volumes to source control using distribution system and decentralized management that mimic the natural process of the hydrologic cycle (Karvonen, 2011).

Throughout the world, many governments are employing BGI projects using SuDS techniques to strengthen their visions in sustainable development, as well as to promote the livelihood of the inhabitants, the water and soil quality, and the cultural aspect of the city. Such example is Singapore, which first enacted the ‘City in a Garden’ strategic vision, or the ABC waters (Active, Beautiful, and Clean Waters) in 2006, whereby it aimed to integrate the city’s abundant blue spaces with green parks and gardens; connecting, beautifying, and cleaning their existing streams, rivers, and lakes with community spaces for the residents to enjoy. Meanwhile, in the city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, a strategic vision for the Rotterdam Climate Proof Programme were set up in 2008, putting Rotterdam on a path to make the city 100 percent climate-proof by 2025. The long-term goal of this programme is for the city to be minimally disrupted by, and maximally benefits from, the climate change in the next following decades. This programme employed a number of BGI projects as well as innovative use of SuDS knowledge to climate-proof the city (Brears, 2018).

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2.4 SuDS Approaches: Case of Cloudburst Management Plan

As mentioned previously, the evolution of SuDS in various locales around the world has resulted in a wide range of approaches to SuDS design and implementation. The extent to which specific case studies have embraced SuDS principles and best practices varies depending on the brief from the clients, the physical area that it covers, the biodiversity that exists in that area, and most importantly, the community it sets out to serves.

Many SuDS projects around the world can be categorized by their type of development and the SuDS components they include (Susdrain, 2020). Types of development include, but are not limited to, residential, highway/street, commercial/retail, mixed development, school, public realm, public sector, and private sector. Meanwhile the components of SuDS projects include a collection of measures to comprise the SuDS management train.

This might include green roofs and permeable paving as components of source control, swales and channels serving the conveyance component, and wetlands and detention basins serving as a regional control component (Grant, 2016; Susdrain, 2020).

Figure 3: Images of London Road in Leicester, UK (left), and Pacific Quay Development Site in Glasgow, UK (right) (Martin, 2018; Woolgar Hunter Engineers, n.d.)

There are countless examples of SuDS projects around the world. For example, the London Road residential SuDS scheme in Leicester (UK) focuses on source and site control. This project includes several SuDS components such as porous paving for source control and precast concrete systems for retaining water underground as a site control measure (Susdrain, n.d.). Another SuDS example is the Pacific Quay mixed-use development in Glasgow (UK). The development of this site extends 25.92 acres, splits into two sites, and is expected to include residential, commercial, hotel, recreational, and offices spaces (Jones & MacDonald, 2007; Atelier ten, 2015).

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Meanwhile, in continental Europe, many populated urban cities are also recognizing the importance of adapting their urban landscape to cope with the changing climate of the region. Started in 2009, Copenhagen began to discuss adaptive measures for their urban development processes soon after hosting the COP15 conference. This resulted in the first Copenhagen Climate Change Adaptation Plan (CCPA) in August 2011. This plan, according to the City of Copenhagen, sets framework for implementation of climate adaptive measures within the city administrative area (Københavns Kommune, 2012).

Figure 4: Cloudburst event of July 2^nd, 2011, Copenhagen, Denmark (Københavns Kommune, 2012)

However, shortly before the Climate Change Adaptation Plan (CCAP) came into effect, Copenhagen experienced one of the worst ‘Cloudburst’ events (‘Skybrud’ or ‘Skyfall’ in Danish) in the city’s history. On 2 July 2011, the city was inundated with 15cm of rainfall in less than three hours, inundating much of the public infrastructure and many parts of the populated urban core with stormwater (Københavns Kommune, n.d.). This event cost Copenhagen an estimated 5-6 Billion Danish Krone (USD 800-1000 million) worth of direct damage and unknown indirect costs due to long-term damage to the local and regional economy (Københavns Kommune, 2012).

The Cloudburst event of 2011 led to many rapid changes in the development of the CCAP.

Of particular note was the Cloudburst Management Plan (CMP) in 2012. One of the main features of CMP is the establishment of a maximum limit on stormwater flooding. This was set at 10 centimeters of water on the surface during a 100-year storm event. The CMP inspired the development of over 300 projects that will be implemented across the city over the next 20 years, and divides the city into 7 main catchment areas (see figure 21 in Appendix C for the catchment map). These projects will involve the redevelopment

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of major public and private spaces across the city to accommodate SuDS components (Københavns Kommune, n.d.). The CMP is notable for its efforts to involve different level of stakeholders and to reallocate financial responsibilities through a combination of private and public investments to enhance the city’s adaptation measures (Københavns Kommune, 2012).

Figure 5: Examples of Cloudburst Planning by City of Copenhagen and their Cloudburst Toolbox developed by their partnership with Rambøll (Rambøll, 2016; Københavns Kommune, n.d.)

The CMP is unique from other SuDS approaches because it focuses on existing populated urban areas and it permeates the core of the city’s urban planning strategies to become a part of Copenhagen’s planning DNA. The involvement of many stakeholders is also an integral part in its success. By developing the concepts with many actors across various interdisciplinary fields, Copenhagen succeeded in developing a sophisticated SuDS plan. The CMP combined a series of source control, site control and conveyance systems into an architectural masterpiece, and doubles as areas for recreational and social enrichment for communities across the city of Copenhagen. The CMP achievements in Copenhagen to date surpass those of other populated urban areas around the world, making it an exemplary case study.

The aim of this study is to examine how the knowledge produced in the CMP is relevant beyond Copenhagen. The study uses the lens of ‘Policy Mobility’ to investigate how the CMP became a ‘hot policy’ that appeals to policymakers around the world. The study has a particular focus on the ‘Knowledge Transfer’ that is happening between world cities around the application of the CMP.

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3. Theoretical Framework

This chapter establishes the foundational framework of this thesis research. It begins with an introduction to policy mobility as a lens to study the CMP and then describes theories regarding policy mobilizers and four stages of knowledge transfer. These ideas are directly related to addressing the research questions raised in this study.

3.1 Policy Mobility and Transfer

Globally, in recent decades, there has been a worldwide development on how policies related to climate-adapted infrastructure travel across their local, regional and national boundaries. The global circulation of policies occurs on all different levels of governance, from local to national levels (Peck & Theodore, 2010; Van Ewijk et al., 2015). One of the most important aspects to examine when focusing on the global circulation of policies is how they are extracted from their origins before being transferred to other destinations.

According to McCann (2008), there have been numerous accounts on climate-adapted blue-green infrastructure development projects worldwide, most of them from cities that have focused on developing innovations to solve everyday problems. Many cities, such as Vancouver and Singapore have emerged as successful case studies that policymakers around the world have focused on (McCann, 2011). This phenomenon gave rise to the new era of policy hot spots, where ‘hot’ policy ideas for the sustainable city are a key component of a city’s leadership status. The push towards the movement in policy sets the tone for what policy mobility embodies. Prince (2020) defines policy mobility as:

the apparent movement of policy from one place to another in terms of the various material, institutional, and social agencies… [whereby] it pays particular attention to both the way that a policy changes as it moves, and the way that the context from which, through which, and to which it travels also change with that movement.

Policy mobility is further described by Phelps (2017) as the “one that signals a relational economic geography [that embodies] the tension between the fixity and mobility of capital, between sedentarism and nomadic perspective in geography.” And yet, one cannot lessen the other for it to be facilitated (ibid.).

The study of policy mobility can be distinguished from the study of policy transfer in at least two main ways. The first is that the traditional notion of transfer and best practices are replaced by notions of mobility that examine the connected webs of institutions and

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their path-dependencies. And secondly, the notion of policy knowledge being packaged, wrapped, and given, is replaced by the notions of learning, translating, and transforming the knowledge. Thus, the idea of policy mobility does not represent the replication of knowledge, but rather the dismemberment and transformation of the knowledge from origin to destination (Peck & Theodore, 2010; Clarke, 2012). Phelps (2017) notes that

“much policy ‘learning’ amounts to little more than copying.”

Therefore, it is crucial for policy mobility researchers to be aware of how policies mutate as they move from one place to the other. Studying policy mobility provides an opportunity to investigate how knowledge gets transferred, translated, and transformed. It is through investigating these movements that social connections of distant actors are revealed to expose the global circuits where policy knowledge is sculpted as it moves (McCann &

Ward, 2013). This notion of policy mobility provides the foundation for in-depth investigations into who mobilizes policies, and who transfer policies, as described in the following section.

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3.2 Policy Mobilizers

To investigate how knowledge is mobilized, it is essential to identify those who facilitate the movement. Prince (2020) argues that those who facilitate the movement of policy knowledge create a ‘policy network’. This network is comprised of many policy actors, including but not limited to policymakers, politicians, technocrats, consultants, and academics. These groups can be from different parts of the world and are connected institutionally, socially, culturally, and even historically to develop and share their policy knowledge.

There has been much research into the mobilizers of policy throughout the world. McCann (2011) identifies three main categories of policy mobilizers that can be distinguished, as illustrated in figure 6. Local Policy Actors (LPA), Global Policy Consultocracy (GPC), and Informal Infrastructure (INF) encompass the individuals and organisations that mobilize policies from their origin to their destination.

Figure 6: Policy Mobilizers (adapted from McCann, 2011)

3.2.1 Local Policy Actors

Local policy actors include those who are professionals within their policy arena. This includes engineers and architects of a particular project. Another group of local policy actor includes private policy consultants and civil society groups. Private policy consultants are those private companies that work directly with a specific project, while

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civil society groups are those that form an organization to discuss the project openly, and often involve public community engagement within the group itself.

Mintrom (1997) describes ‘policy entrepreneurs’ as actors who actively search for best practices to embrace and adopt. These best practices are usually the newest and most innovative and cutting-edge ideas that are trending in resilience research. Policy entrepreneurs often tap into their extra local connections that range from their intergovernmental alliances to individual relationships that they forged from colleagues and elsewhere.

One of the main drivers for this group of policy actors is the regulatory capitalist system that pushes for new development, both public and private, to be regulated according to the new set of resilience standard set forth by the government (Phelps, 2017). The drive for this system creates competitive ground for LPA to identify best practices that helps them win publicly funded projects. Flyvbjerg et al. (2003) note the paradox of this approach whereby the government tends to absorb the risks associated with these urban projects, resulting in influx of poorly managed projects that are not adequately regulated.

This can result in a damaged reputation and lead to low public support.

3.2.2 Global Policy Consultocracy

The second group of policy mobilizers includes Global Policy Consultocracy (GPC) (Saint-Martin, 2000). The GPC is a select group of policy mobilizers who, in the recent timeline of policy mobility, have played an active role in mobilizing policy knowledge across the world. This category of policy mobilizers branches off into two other types, Incoming Policy Consultants and Outgoing Policy Consultants. Incoming Policy Consultants are those who bring in policy ideas into the city while Outgoing Policy Consultants are those who, often based in the ‘best practice’ of a particular city, export their policy knowledge to cities around the world.

Peck (2002) notes that the institutions that profit from policy ideas and models such as the GPC and think tanks first emerged in the 1970s, where they started to generate and facilitate the circulation of policies between different cities. Many members of the GPC are employed by large companies with extensive international networks and offices, as well as financial incentives to organize effective knowledge transfer mechanisms. These individuals operate internally and externally outside their company boundary (Van Widen

& Van den Buuse, 2017).

Nevertheless, the rapid global circulation of policy knowledge that is stimulated by access to the international neoliberal market could also result in the adoption of bad practices.

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Baker and Temenoz (2015) argue that many policy knowledges that were fast-tracked and prescribed through these pre-moulded frameworks produced ‘fast policy’ regimes.

This creates a slippery slope whereby the ‘copy-and-paste’ effect of a policy can result in a detrimental effect on the transferred knowledge and could dampen the efforts the policy is intended to achieve at its destination.

However, the GPC has become incredibly influential on the world stage. McCann (2011) suggests that the reason why GPC became powerful is because of their tendency to

“gather information on best practices from various places to bolster their specific recommendations”, coupled with their robust deployment of internal knowledge transfer mechanisms, make them a powerful player in the field of policy mobilization.

3.2.3 Informational Infrastructure

The last group of policy mobilizer is the Informal Infrastructure that exists in the policy knowledge realm. This group includes educators, trainers, supra-Local policy organizations, and the popular media. The group plays a vital role in engaging the academic world as well as informing the actors and the players of what the policy is. In other words, they are a huge influence on making policy mobilization happen.

Informational Infrastructure plays a particularly crucial role in the conceptualization of urban resilience concepts and their influence within this field is felt near and far. McCann (2011) suggests that those within the academic fields, and to a lesser extent those in policy organizations, yield immense power in influencing best practices. They codify the information used throughout the policy network and legitimize specific mobilities and mental maps. This occurs through the use of best practice case studies during training activities and certificates and diplomas given out at the end of the training.

Popular media also plays a significant role in creating a mental map of good and bad urban practices. They construct the narratives of what our cities should look like, and they popularize the findings through the experts and organizations discussed above (McCann, 2011). The mobilization of knowledge by these actors could be done through a different form of network and infrastructure, such as classrooms, computer programs, advertisements, and even social media (Prince, 2020). One of the most prominent examples is the ranking of cities by popular media, such as ‘the most livable city’ and ‘the greenest city’ lists (McCann, 2011).

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3.3 Process of Knowledge Transfer

According to McCann and Ward (2013), to understand how policies move from one place to another, it is crucial to study how they mutate during these processes. It is through this understanding that the circular model of ‘Process of Knowledge Transfer’ is created.

Figure 7: Knowledge Transfer Process (adapted from Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1996; Ilgen, 2016;

Van Doren et al., 2018; Ilgen et al., 2019; Cantinez, 2020)

Figure 7 is inspired by several authors and illustrates a circular model of knowledge transfer that includes how knowledge is produced and mobilized from the borrowing to the receiving city. The process of knowledge mobilization above shows how knowledge gets transferred from the borrowing city in a clockwise direction, whilst the knowledge gets received by the receiving city in an anti-clockwise direction. This simulates simultaneous processes in which both cities interact.

The first stage of knowledge transfer is knowledge exploration and production activities on the receiving city side, which involves the amplification, upscaling, and marketing of existing knowledge for the borrowing city. The second stage is where the borrowing and receiving cities contact one another to establish a network to facilitate the transfer of knowledge. The third stage, the transfer and translation of knowledge, is where the knowledge is transferred from the borrowing to the receiving city. It is important to note that the arrows between the two processes indicate the flow direction of knowledge that

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happens between these processes. The knowledge does not only flow from borrowing to receiving city, but it also flows back to the borrowing city for their own reflection in the next stage. The last process involves reflection by both cities get to internalize their own knowledge experience. These reflection and internalization processes then act as a feedback to the first process, whereby, it helps both cities to evaluate their working process, and improve their knowledge for the future processes of knowledge transfer.

Each of these stages has its significance when it comes to their roles in facilitating the knowledge transfer. The following section will describe what each of these processes is, and their role in facilitating the transfer.

3.3.1 Stage One: Exploration, production, amplification, upscaling, and marketing of policy

The first stage focuses on theories that revolves around the first stage of knowledge transfer. This stage is where knowledge is developed and matured before being cultivated for transfer to destination cities. In this section, theories regarding knowledge production, exploration, amplification, upscaling, and marketing are examined.

3.3.1.1 Knowledge exploration and production

Following the journey of knowledge requires a basic understanding of how knowledge is produced. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) describe four modes of knowledge production processes.

Figure 8: The knowledge spiral (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Thomas & Pretat, 2009)

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The first step in creating and producing knowledge regarding resilience policy is to perform an iterative process that involves both tacit and explicit knowledge. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) present a spiral of knowledge creation to illustrate how knowledge is produced. Knowledge is first created by 1) socialization between individuals, where intuitive knowledge and know-how rooted in experience, practice and values are exchanged, 2) externalization where tacit knowledge is articulated into explicit knowledge as codified in documents, databases, etc., 3) combined through a process of systemizing concepts into a knowledge system, and 4) internalized through spreading and absorption by individuals within an organization to become tacit knowledge.

The spiral process illustrates how knowledge is created, written, organized, and then evolve into a new set of knowledge. This concept is essential when looking at how policy knowledge gets mobilized because it forms a critical part whereby the knowledge produced in one place, is transferred, gained, and evolve into a new set of knowledge in its destination.

3.3.1.2 Amplification, scaling-up and marketing

To investigate the transfer of knowledge that leads to policy mobility, the in-depth understanding of how certain knowledge gets upscaled and amplified must be understood. Most of the time, the terms ‘upscaling’ and ‘amplifying’ are used interchangeably. However, there is a clear distinction between the terms. The term amplification is used to define the increasing impacts of innovation, usually involve the spatial scale of the project. In contrast, upscaling is used to describe level or scales that involve a higher level of hierarchy, most of which involves vertical pathways such as governance or quantity (Cash et al., 2006; Horcea-Milcu et al., 2019; Lam et al., 2020).

Figure 9: Horizontal and vertical pathways to scaling-up initiatives (Van Doren et al., 2018)

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For a particular knowledge to be amplified and upscaled, synergies must be realised between the horizontal and vertical pathways. The theory, as illustrated in figure 9, suggests a synergistic relationship between the horizontal pathway, which range from small, local, and homogeneous initiative, to large heterogeneous initiatives, and the vertical pathway, which is where initiatives become influential on different levels of political jurisdictions ranging from local and regional to national and international level (Van Doren et al., 2018).

The synergistic relationship suggests that more horizontal amplification results in greater vertical scaling-up. This means that if small, localized, and homogeneous initiatives become more extensive and more diversified, the more likely it is that the initiative will influence the higher level of governance, be it domestically or internationally. Van Doren et al. (2018) suggest that if the initiatives do not get upscaled vertically, the initiatives that exist will remain “little more than islands of excellence in their institutional environment.”

When it comes to identifying how different type of management styles can be upscaled and amplified to influence the broader regime, Lam et al. (2020) characterize projects that form a 'protective spaces for radical innovations to develop' and to influence beyond its border as a "strategic niche management scheme." The purpose of this scheme is to increase the potential felt within a niche, and to enlarge it across its boundary. The CMP as a resilience policy related to SuDS aligns with this description.

However, it should also be noted that the upscaling of projects is not always successful.

Growing interest from cities around the world has inspired many institutes and businesses to initiate pilot projects and many of these are small and experimental. However, many of them fade out due to many reasons including lack of political will and financial pressures (Van Widen & Van Den Buuse, 2017). This suggests that the right ingredients must be combined to realize a particular balance to explore, amplify, upscale, and market the policy knowledge on resilience concepts.

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3.3.2 Stage Two: Contact between two cities

In this ever-changing globalized world, it comes as no surprise that policy knowledge circulates rapidly around the world. Modern forms of transportation and advanced communication technologies have enabled a high connectivity between cities. These have further enabled cross-boundary learning and knowledge sharing where members of different communities who are topographically far apart can benefit from resilience- research and practices from other communities that do not share a similar background (Clarke, 2012; Huck & Monstadt, 2019). Huck and Monstadt (2019) argue that for the benefit of cross-boundary resilience research and practice, mutual engagement across sector and communities should be practiced instead of within their own circle of practices.

3.3.2.1 Knowledge Network and Infrastructure

Prince (2020) suggests that this connectedness brings together a wide range of social and material practices. For example, policy conferences include those who are involved in the mobilization of policy who gather to network and share knowledge among one another to create various networks through which polity travels. It is through these networking events that different policy actors, be it consultants, technocrats, or researchers, learn and share ideas as well as discuss and distribute their inspiration to other parties (Larner & Laurie, 2010; Peck & Theodore, 2010). These contact points and networking events allow policy actors to expand, remake, and push their ways of thinking over their boundary, as well as inspire others to emulate and mimic the strategy gained from other insights into their localized context. Peck and Theodore (2010) suggest that the reason why urban policy circulates rapidly today is because of new transportation and communication technologies. The advancements in these technology helps to shrink the world and facilitate quick engagement between actors, thereby forming new online networks where cities around the world can easily engage.

Nevertheless, most of the networks that exists around the world tend to facilitate cross- boundary learning within the global north cities. Prince (2020) argues that these "heavily institutionalized and formalized organs" mostly reside in European Union or within the countries that are part of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations. These nations leverage their stabilized economies to support policy actors to engage in the enhancement of urban resilience policies. They also share cultural values and best-practice viewpoints.

While most of these knowledge network and infrastructure reside within and across the European Union and other OECD nations, there are others that reside outside of these networks (Prince, 2020). The knowledge network and infrastructure that resides outside of the aforementioned states are usually Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs),

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academic research network, architectural organization, and privately funded organizations. Meanwhile, others are less formal, taking shape in a form of personal connections and relationships, forming a more localized organization that links distant places toward their local area. Prince (2020) notes that many of these localized organization are short-lived because they were formed “just for the purposes of one act of policymaking or transfer before dispersing.” All of these networks, whether long-lived or short-lived, helps to form an infrastructural platform where policies can be constructed, developed, shared, and distributed.

The infrastructure that existed for these network circuits of policy actors are found to

“express multiple power relations that must be negotiated” for a policy knowledge to become mobilized (Prince, 2020). The assumption that policy knowledge travels from one city to another without any interruption or modification is unrealistic. Prince (2020) argues that the ground must be cleared at the arrival site to allow for “constructive political work that is at least a much local as global” to take place. The work devoted to these network circuits includes a range of social and material practices including conferences, workshops, academic lectures, and social functions. These events provide venues for policy knowledge to be discussed and shared, create a knowledge network and infrastructure, and contribute to the networks being made, expand, and remade (ibid.).

3.3.2.2 ‘Seeds of radicalism’

Merrifield (2009) suggests that even though the power of policy of seduction can be 'liberating', it can also contain 'seeds of radicalism'. Whereby, the purpose of ideas can become transformative, disruptive, and reinventive within the resilience concept development in the receiving city.

Paradoxically, these same ideas can also be designed to extract and capitalize, using 'seduction' as a tool. 'Seeds of radicalism' can therefore have both positive and negative effects on the initiative implemented in the receiving city. If positively implemented, the receiving city benefits from a transformative initiative that can positively contribute to the receiving community. However, if poorly implemented, the idea and the ‘seeds of radicalism’ can negatively affect the social fabric of the receiving community, countering the productivity, and do not further facilitate the upscaling of the initiative on either horizontal or vertical pathways.

These ‘seeds of radicalism’ can be instrumentalized by the different actors involved.

Anguelovski (2018) emphasizes ‘green gentrification’ within the urban greening community and suggests that “alliances between municipal planners, elected officials, and developers” are often formed as a strategy to win a competitive urban greening

Blue-Green Infrastructure on the Move:

Blue-Green Infrastructure on the Move:

How Resilience Concepts Travel Between Cities

Blå-grön infrastruktur i farten:

Hur motståndskraftskonceptet färdas mellan städer

Blue-Green Infrastructure on the Move

Abstract

Keywords

Sammanfattning

Acknowledgements

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures

Nomenclature

1. Introduction

2. Background

2.1 Climate Change and Urban Vulnerability

2.2 Urban Resilience and Blue-Green Infrastructure

2.3 Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS)

2.4 SuDS Approaches: Case of Cloudburst Management Plan

3. Theoretical Framework

3.1 Policy Mobility and Transfer

3.2 Policy Mobilizers

3.2.1 Local Policy Actors

3.2.2 Global Policy Consultocracy

3.2.3 Informational Infrastructure

3.3 Process of Knowledge Transfer

3.3.1 Stage One: Exploration, production, amplification, upscaling, and marketing of policy

3.3.2 Stage Two: Contact between two cities