Economic benefits of rainwater management in the city

Korzyści ekonomiczne zagospodarowania wód opadowych

In what areas does economics deal with water? What creates the economic value of water? What kind of public good is water? These questions formed the basis of theoretical considerations, which were then narrowed down to rainwater and snowmelt analyses and published in a monograph. The economic benefits of rainwater management are a vast and extremely complex topic. The questions posed were related to the city’s operations and the economic savings that can be achieved if blue-green infrastructure and nature-based solutions are introduced.

Economic benefits of rainwater management as the goal of the monograph

The research objective of the monograph was to propose a methodology for calculating the economic benefits of rainwater and snowmelt management in the city, taking into account the entities involved in the process. Throughout the monograph, the principle is adopted from the general to the specific. It would be difficult to discuss rainwater without referring to more general studies of water as a resource or as a good in economic science. While economics deals extensively with the issue of natural resources, it has been quite a challenge to seek out considerations and research on water alone, especially rainwater.

A brief history of rainwater management analysis

Analyses of rainwater can generally be dated back to the last 20 years, with much of the work being related to practical methods of managing it. For more than a dozen years, expert and scientific studies have been appearing on the benefits of rainwater management (rather than its rapid discharge into a receiving body). This monograph presents selected approaches to benefit analysis, while going a step further by proposing a detailed methodology for counting them in Polish conditions.

Monograph content by chapter

The content of the monograph is divided into 5 chapters. The first is a review of the economic literature in terms of water, including rainwater. The introductory discussion deals with natural resources in the economic sciences, including water, and then, in more detail, deals with issues of ownership and access to water, water as a public good, and how the perception of water as a public, private, club or common good may be changing.

The issue of water value, including the difference between value and price, has also been extensively addressed. Reference was made to the concept of total economic value and its components, including water. Considerations related to water ownership, water law and water rights were not undertaken due to the limited size of the publication, but these issues have been developed in another publication and should be seen as complementary to the author’s consideration of the nature of water in economics.

The second chapter deals with environmental benefits and costs illuminated from several perspectives, such as the development of these categories in economics, their practical application within the cost-benefit analysis methodology, the approach presented in the Water Framework Directive and the ecosystem services analysis methodology. This represents a comprehensive approach to the topic of economic benefits and costs. In each case, water issues were addressed.

The next, third chapter focuses on the benefits of rainwater and snowmelt management in the city. An integrated approach to the topic and the advantages of the proposed measures are presented, the stages of evolution of cities in this direction are described, and the benefits of introducing blue-green infrastructure in urban areas and the dilemmas associated with it are described. It also proposes the author’s model approach to the valorization of the benefits of rainwater and snowmelt management in the city, which is further developed and evaluated in relation to economic benefits later in the monograph.

The fourth chapter was devoted to the management of rainwater in cities in Poland, the escalation of problems with rapid urban flooding and measures taken at the local level to counteract its negative effects. The chapter describes and “maps” the rainwater management system in our country and identifies and unifies the description of the three most basic models.

The last chapter – the fifth – was written as the results of the author’s empirical research on the example of a selected city. The added value of this part of the monograph is not only a new methodical approach to identifying the benefits of changing the way rainwater is managed in the accounts of the various entities involved in the process (and identified in Chapter Four). In several valuation items, the author allowed herself to make conservative estimates of them, but she also had to admit that there are areas that need to be started or changed in the way data is collected and digitized. These findings also carry significant cognitive value and should be considered as valuable as results from areas that have been successfully valorized. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the results obtained and recommendations for actions to be implemented in Poland.

Summary

The author has attempted to combine the extreme poles: economic theories of natural resources, including water, with practical measures related to rainwater and universal methods of valorizing economic benefits with the practice of Polish cities operating in a specific legal-administrative-economic reality. The author hopes that this monograph has succeeded in building bridges between these extremes and that it will be a useful item for a wide range of scientists, practitioners and activists interested in the economic benefits of urban rainwater and snowmelt management, as well as students of both environmental engineering and economics.

Dr. Ksymena Rosiek – researcher, teacher, employee of the Cracow University of Economics, in the Department of Sustainable Development Finance. Member of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. A contributor to the OEES WaterLab think tank. He specializes in sustainable development issues, with a particular interest in the city’s ecosystems, blue and green infrastructure. Stormwater management from an economic perspective in an era of climate transition, environmental costs and benefits in the context of the Circular Economy, common goods and the impact of Revolution 4.0 on the public sector are the subject of current research. Author of the monograph Economic Benefits of Urban Stormwater Management.

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