Integrated Urban Catchment Governance

Organizational, Legal and Fiscal Foundations for Sustainable Management of Waste- and Rainwater in the Wuxi Region/China


Personnel

Department of Environmental and Planning Law
Dr. Moritz Reese (project coordination)
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Köck
Baixin Shen

Department of Economics
Prof. Dr. Erik Gawel
Norman Bedtke


Partner in China

Tongji Universität, Shanghai
⇒ Prof. Xiang-Zhou Meng

Hubei University of Economics
⇒ Prof. Lv Zhongmei

Research Institut of Environmental Law, Wuhan University
⇒ Prof. Qin Tianbao


Status

Funded by the BMBF as part of the project SIGN (Sino-German water supply Network – Clean water from the source to the tap); funding programme CLIENT − International partnerships for sustainable climate and environmental technologies and -services


Description

The sub-project on Governance will conduct a scientifically informed stakeholder dialogue with a view to identifying institutional and fiscal obstacles to the development of sustainable urban drainage solutions within the project region and developing concrete suggestions as to how these obstacles can be overcome. The sub-project is focusing on crucial governance challenges of sustainable urban water resource management (UWRM), namely

  1. due integration of spatial UWRM requirements into urban planning and development,
  2. sustainable funding and cost allocation and
  3. effective surveillance, information and participation.

The sub-project begins with a preparatory screening of the institutional and economic givens in the region, as a first work package. On that basis, the three above mentioned main challenges will each be tackled stepwise by

  • a preparatory expert assessment of the relevant institutional setting,
  • expert interviews,
  • an opinion-paper,
  • a stakeholder workshop and
  • a concluding report with policy recommendations.

Project results will also be disseminated through Journals and a common book on “Institutional obstacles and pathways to sustainable urban catchment management in Chinese cities”.