TY - JOUR

T1 - Co-design of experimental nature-based solutions for decentralized dry-weather runoff treatment retrofitted in a densely urbanized area in Central America

AU - Hack, Jochen

AU - Perez Rubi, Maria Antonieta

N1 - Funding information: The authors thank José Fernando Chapa, M.Sc. for contributing with Figs. 3 and 4. Jana Rose, M.Sc. for developing the social acceptance research. Tanja Fluhrer, M.Sc. who worked the spatial analysis and provided Figs. 6 and 7. Laura Vargas who contributed with the prototypes design sketches depicted in Figs. 8 , 9 and 10. David Rodriguez, from the Municipal Hall of Flores, for his constant support along this research.

PY - 2021/8

Y1 - 2021/8

N2 - The quality of water in many urban rivers in Latin America is increasingly degrading due to wastewater and runoff discharges from urban sprawl. Due to deficits in sanitary drainage systems, greywater is discharged to the stormwater drainage network generating a continuous dry-weather runoff that reaches rivers without treatment. One of the main challenges in the region is to achieve sustainable management of urban runoff for the recovery of rivers ecosystem integrity. However, retrofitting conventional centralized wastewater drainage networks into the existing urban grid represents important social, economic and technical challenges. This paper presents an alternative adaptive methodology for the design of Nature-based Solutions for decentralized urban runoff treatment. Through this study, technical solutions commonly used for stormwater management were adapted for dry-weather runoff treatment and co-designed for the particular conditions of a representative study area, considering space availability as the main constraining factor for retrofitting in urban areas. The application of a co-design process in a dense neighbourhood of the Great Metropolitan area of Costa Rica brought to light valuable insights about conditions that could be hindering the implementation of NBS infrastructures in Latin America.

AB - The quality of water in many urban rivers in Latin America is increasingly degrading due to wastewater and runoff discharges from urban sprawl. Due to deficits in sanitary drainage systems, greywater is discharged to the stormwater drainage network generating a continuous dry-weather runoff that reaches rivers without treatment. One of the main challenges in the region is to achieve sustainable management of urban runoff for the recovery of rivers ecosystem integrity. However, retrofitting conventional centralized wastewater drainage networks into the existing urban grid represents important social, economic and technical challenges. This paper presents an alternative adaptive methodology for the design of Nature-based Solutions for decentralized urban runoff treatment. Through this study, technical solutions commonly used for stormwater management were adapted for dry-weather runoff treatment and co-designed for the particular conditions of a representative study area, considering space availability as the main constraining factor for retrofitting in urban areas. The application of a co-design process in a dense neighbourhood of the Great Metropolitan area of Costa Rica brought to light valuable insights about conditions that could be hindering the implementation of NBS infrastructures in Latin America.

KW - Co-design

KW - Dry-weather runoff

KW - Green infrastructure

KW - Nature-based Solutions

KW - Retrofit

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100539251&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s13280-020-01457-y

DO - 10.1007/s13280-020-01457-y

M3 - Article

VL - 50

SP - 1498

EP - 1513

JO - AMBIO

JF - AMBIO

SN - 0044-7447

IS - 8

ER -