Paradigms of urban water management are crucial for climate adaptation

Today it is generally accepted among engineers and planners that urban water management is carried out based on rational principles and that our infrastructure, practices and rules are gradually improved. It is generally assumed that this development will end in sustainable solutions that cover all water-related needs. However, reality shows that innovative solutions for climate adaptation are often rejected and not adopted. Previous research has identified a series of barriers of a social nature that prevent innovations from being adopted.

PhD Manuel Franco Torres has researched how the water and wastewater sector (like other sectors) uses shared mental models, also called paradigms, to understand how the world works, to provide recipes to develop new  knowledge, or to identify what is important and what problems need to be solved. The dominant paradigm of an epoque is thus decisive in determining which infrastructures, practices and rules are created and adopted. The PhD work shows that the current paradigm for urban water management is in conflict with new solutions for climate adaptation and undermines efforts to adopt these. The conclusion is that awareness is required of how the paradigms shape practice in order to be able to remove the barriers that prevent the implementation of innovative solutions for climate adaptation. Unfortunately, this awareness is not present in the curricula of Norwegian educational institutions.