Doctoral Dissertation Research: Perspectives of and Preferences Towards Stormwater Management

这一博士论文研究项目将集中于影响雨水管理者如何重新定义雨水的用途和价值的因素。在干旱和潮湿地区，雨水的处理从处理废水、受污染的径流和洪水，到将其作为一种有益的资源处理，可以增强城市的可持续性，补充当地的地下水供应，并具有其他有益的用途。鉴于未来可能出现水资源短缺和风暴规模增大的情况，有效地将雨水纳入当前的水管理计划对人类和生态健康都至关重要。为了更好地理解这种新兴类型的综合水资源管理的治理安排，博士生将实证地研究人们对雨水的态度，以及这种态度的汇聚和分化如何影响芝加哥和洛杉矶的管理方式。该项目将整合科学技术研究和政治生态方面的学术知识，以促进关于态度、信念和理解如何塑造城市环境治理和水资源管理的知识。它还将加强对技术创新对城市环境治理影响的基本了解。通过表征不同政治、技术和气候制度的城市中专家对雨水的态度，这项研究将为水资源管理者和市政机构提供新的信息和见解，在他们考虑实施新的管理政策时，关于如何处理雨水的不同方法。通过将关键利益攸关方纳入研究设计的多个阶段，研究结果有可能直接影响决策过程和公共政策。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将为有前途的学生建立强大的独立研究生涯提供支持。该项目将集中于三组核心问题：(1)雨水管理和调节的历史是什么，以及政治行为者、科学专家和普通公民以什么方式重新定义和重新定义了雨水的流动？(2)目前定义雨水的相互竞争的技术系统、社会视角和制度安排是什么，它们决定了雨水的管理，并铭刻了它的用途和价值？(3)这些相互竞争的技术、观点、和体制安排相互关联，并影响如何理解、管理和控制暴雨，以解决风险和脆弱性问题？为了确定驱动雨水管理转型的共同态度和观点，学生将使用比较极端的案例研究方法。他将结合关键信息提供人访谈、档案数据分析和参与者观察，使用Q-分析方法来确定不同的观点，并将它们与其他人的观点联系起来。这些分析将使人们更好地理解在不同地理环境下推动雨水管理变革的视角，项目结果将提供对从缺水到富水的各种地点发生的变化范围的概括性见解。

This doctoral dissertation research project will focus on the factors that shape how stormwater managers have redefined the uses and value of stormwater. In both arid and humid regions, the treatment of stormwater from dealing with wastewater, polluted runoff, and floodwater as something to treated and drained away to handling it as a beneficial resource that can enhance urban sustainability, recharge local groundwater supplies, and have other beneficial uses. Given the possibility for future water scarcity and increases in the size of storms, effectively integrating stormwater into current water management schemes will be crucial for both human and ecological health. To better understand the governance arrangements of this emerging type of integrated water resource management, the doctoral student will empirically examine attitudes about stormwater as well as how converging and diverging attitudes of it influence how it is managed in Chicago and Los Angeles. This project will integrate scholarship in science and technology studies and political ecology in order to advance knowledge regarding how attitudes, beliefs, and understandings shape urban environmental governance and water resource management. It also will enhance basic understanding of the impacts of technological innovation on urban environmental governance. By characterizing expert attitudes toward stormwater in cities with different political, technological, and climatic regimes this research will provide water managers and municipal agencies with new information and insights regarding different ways to deal with stormwater as they contemplate the implementation of new management policies. By including key stakeholders in multiple phases of the research design, the findings have the potential to directly influence decision-making processes and public policy. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The project will focus on three sets of core questions: (1) What is the history of stormwater management and regulation, and in what ways have the flows of stormwater been remade and redefined by political actors, scientific experts, and ordinary citizens? (2) What are the competing technological systems, social perspectives, and institutional arrangements that currently define stormwater, shape its management, and inscribe its uses and value? (3) How do these competing technologies, perspectives, and institutional arrangements relate to one another and influence how stormwater is understood, managed, and controlled in order to address issues of risk and vulnerability? To identify the shared attitudes and perspectives driving transitions in stormwater management, the student will use a comparative extreme?case study approach. He will use the Q-method of analysis in tandem with key informant interviews, analysis of archival data, and participant observation to identify different points of view and relate them to the points of view of others. The analyses will provide a better understanding of the perspectives driving transformations in stormwater management in different geographical contexts, and project findings will provide generalizable insights into the range of variation that occurs across a spectrum of water-stressed to water-abundant sites.