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Barriers to sustainable urban stormwater management in developing countries: the case of Brazil

Urban stormwater management is one of the key challenges concerning the sustainability in urban areas. Through several approaches, sustainable urban stormwater management (SUSM) is becoming widely adopted around the world and is proving its effectiveness in enhancing sustainability and quality of life in the cities. Nevertheless, these strategies are still not widespread in developing countries, such as Brazil, where more than 40% of municipalities reported pluvial flooding in the last five years. Inspired by international experiences, this paper presents the barriers to the widespread adoption of SUSM in Brazil, as a developing country case study with severe urban stormwater management problems. A thorough literature review has been conducted. Surveys relating to urban stormwater management have been completed by different stakeholder groups to investigate the factors involved in the problem, such as institutional issues, professional capacity, and resource availability. “Lack of design and maintenance standards”, “Lack of long-term planning”, “Lack of dissemination and knowledge”, “Lack of incentives”, and “Reluctance to change” have been recognized as the most challenging barriers by 80% of the respondents. Overcoming the common barriers is the prelude to effective SUSM solutions to increase urban stormwater sustainability in Brazil and in other developing countries with similar challenges.