Abstract:

With the increasing frequencies of extreme climate events like intense storms and urban flooding, a transformative shift is imperative in cities to the approach to urban stormwater management. While the Netherlands has made strides in technology and political commitment to climate change, persistent barriers hamper progress, prompting an exploration of the governance system that led to the success and failures of the implementation of adaptation measures.

This research focuses on the financing of urban stormwater measures in Amsterdam where funding is a necessary means to execute plans. Adopting an inducting approach, the study analyses interviews and institutional structures which facilitates theory building to explain system interactions that influence implementation.

In the findings, two types of decision-making processes emerged: a bottom-up process, involving actors on the implementation level who are tasked with proposing and executing plans, and a top-down process, where municipal authorities approve and advise these plans based on the context of laws, legislation, and politics.

Interviews further emphasized the significance of the bottom-up decision-making processes in implementation, especially in critical negotiations of co-financing that are very much determined by informal relations with other sectors and parties. Additionally, these bottom-up processes can enable the higher-level strategies to be more proactive – where implementers can signal important needs to municipal authorities, to influence rules that can foster a more efficient and smoother project implementation.

This research advocates a realist view of policy implementation, spotlighting both formal and informal interactions in water governance. It highlights the pivotal role of bottom-up decision-making in pursuing adaptation measures, suggesting the need for capacity-building interventions at this level. The study calls for a more nuanced understanding of implementation processes, and future research could explore targeted interventions to stimulate desired behaviours in water governance.