Berlin Rainwater Agency

The Berlin Rainwater Agency (Berliner Regenwasseragentur) is a joint initiative of the State of Berlin in Germany and the Berlin Water Utility. The Agency is a public body founded in 2018 to address issues related to rainwater, such as overloading sewage infrastructure and flooding as well as drought and urban heat island effects as a result of water not being retained in the urban landscape. The Rainwater Agency serves as a creative a platform to connect a wide range of public and private actors and engage them in activities that make the city more rain proof and better adapted to climate change. It aims to support the Berlin administration, planners and citizens in the implementation of decentralized rainwater management solutions by raising awareness about the need for and tools for sustainable rainwater management, connecting actors in the city to available knowledge (e.g. technical, legal, financial) and becoming a contact point for private and public actors interested in e.g. implementing nature-based solutions related to rainwater management. The Berlin Rainwater Agency supports the implementation of a number of existing national and federal laws, regulations and strategies. While the Agency was initially to work for two years, its mandate was extended in 2020 and will now run until 2024.

Overview

Type of instrument:

Knowledge, communication and innovation instruments›Communication/awareness raising

Challenges addressed

Ecologic connectivity
Water management (e.g. reuse)
Drought and fire risk
Flood risk: pluvial and fluvial / soil permeability
Heat stress and heat island effect
Air quality
Noise

Consideration of nature-based solutions:

The Rainwater Agency focuses on promoting semi-decentralised and decentralised rainwater management measures aimed at retention, evaporation, infiltration and use of rainwater such as green roofs and facades, solar green roofs, retention ponds, evaporation beds, troughs, trenches or unsealing of surfaces.The Agency's materials emphasise additional benefits provided by nature-based solutions, beyond stormwater management, such as improving air quality, reducing noise pollution, thermal insulation of buildings and supporting biodiversity.

Targeted (peri-)urban areas:

External building greens

Urban green space connected to grey infrastructure

Good practice characteristics:

Effective

Support multifunctional NBS

Locally appropriate

Potential to be replicated / upscaled

Innovative

Governance

Government body/bodies

Initiating body:

Berlin House of Representatives

Instrument design:

Details about how the instrument was designed:

A commitment to develop and implement measures and instruments for decentralised rain water management in Berlin was included in the coalition agreement of the Berlin Senate for the 2016 to 2021 legislative period. Accordingly, the Berlin House of Representatives commissioned the Berlin Senate in 2017 to cooperate with the Berlin Water Utility to create a Berlin Rainwater Agency. The principles for the Rainwater Agency were formulated as a result of an intensive coordination between Berlin's Water Management Department, representatives of the Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing, the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises and Berlin Water Utility. The principles were included in a publicly available document (see References below).

Instrument implementation:

Type of involvement:

The Rainwater Agency is intended to serve as a creative, broad and effective platform to connect a wide range of actors and engage them in activities that make the city more rain proof and better adapted to climate change (such as for example implementing green roofs and other nature-based solutions). The targeted actors include landowners, land users, representatives of construction and real estate industry (architects, landscape planners, gardeners, property developers, housing associations, housing cooperatives, real estate management of the state and the federal government), private companies in Berlin, Berlin state enterprises and other public companies, urban planning and building offices at different levels of public administration, citizens associations and NGOs. The Rainwater Agency provides information and advice to those actors, including raising awareness among relevant actor about the benefits of nature-based solutions. The agency also supports networking activities, and aims to enable multipliers such as architects and landscape planners through whom further actors can be reached and convinced. The Rainwater Agency initiates exchange with experts, universities and research institutions in order for the agency itself to stay connected to the current expert discourse and support implementation of new innovative approaches.

Type of non-governmental actors involved:

Citizen councils or consultation for co-planning (e.g. workshops, surveys)

Implementation of NBS (e.g. with government funds)

Targeted actors:

Public sector institution (e.g. school or hospital)

Private: household, real estate developer, business , financial

Researchers, university

Citizens or community groups (CBOs), NGOs

Financing

Sources of funding:

Public regional budget

Public local authority’s budget

Budget:

Unknown

Details about instrument financing:

The Berlin Rainwater Agency is fully funded by the state of Berlin from the state budget. The specific annual budget of the agency is unknown.

Monitoring, evaluation and impacts

Is a monitoring framework in place?:

Yes

Every year, the agency submits a short report of its activities to the city government. The reports are not public.

Did an evaluation take place?:

Achieved outcomes and impacts:

The agency directly advises builders, homeowners, building owners on decentralised water management and sponge city approaches, including on appropriate measures, funding, legal matters, suitable contractors. Between 200 and 250 of such tailored consultations are provided each year. The agency also supports large-scale urban developments in the city, providing advice on measures to be implemented and how and when should they best be commissioned. As of 2022, the agency is accompanying 25 such large projects. The agency organises regular online trainings for experts from state administration, utilities and other fields. The trainings are held every 6 to 8 weeks and attract between hundred 50 to 300 participants. The agency also operates an online knowledge platform, gathering existing information and knowledge on water sensitive urban planning, targeted at the variety of relevant users. Among the key impacts of the agency's work is the fact that the agency created a platform for specialists from inside and outside of the city administration to exchange knowledge and establish a common language regarding water sensitive planning. The agency has created new knowledge bases, for example on real costs of building stormwater management projects. The agency also convenes thematic working groups and provides a platform for experts to discuss and address new issues that don't yet have established solutions. The agency provides information and knowledge on maximising the additional benefits from introducing nature-based solutions to manage the stormwater such as biodiversity benefits, cooling, flood and drought prevention.

Success factors and lessons learned:

The team behind the Rainwater Agency underlines that among the success factors is building trust with the different public and private actors active in the related fields. The agency staff aims to provides highly tailored, situation- and site- specific advice, while being fast, dependable, positive and approachable towards its clients, and this has allowed the agency to build a good reputation among various actors. The agency is independent from its founding bodies (the Berlin Water Utility and the Berlin Senate), but remains very close to those institutions. This allows the agency to be innovative and follow unorthodox approaches, while having high level of influence and impact.

Sources and further information

References

List of references:

Berlin Rainwater Agency (2022), Berlin Rainwater Agency website. Available at: https://www.regenwasseragentur.berlin/agentur/

Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz Berlin (2018), Gründung einer Regenwasseragentur. Eckpunkte. Available at: regenwasseragentur.berlin/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Eckpunkte-RWA_2018-05-07.pdf

Interview(s):

Regenwasseragentur

Further documents

Documents:

Eckpunkte-RWA_2018-05-07.pdf

Weblinks:

https://www.regenwasseragentur.berlin/

Photos

@Berliner Regenwasseragentur