Water Dialogues for participatory urban water management - Panama City

The Municipality of Panama City in Panama, supported by a pool of Dutch water experts and the NGO Wetlands International, initiated a multi-stakeholder Water Dialogue to restore trust among flood-affected communities and enhance planning infrastructure (e-g. urban wetland reservoirs in the Juan Díaz sub-district of the city). The Juan Díaz sub-district, which is situated on the Pacific coastline, has been listed as the most flood-prone area in the country and in need of solutions to address foreseen sea level rise. In addition, poorly maintained drainage systems have transformed rivers and creeks flowing through the district into urban garbage dumps. Discussions on who is responsible for these environmental problems were controversial and resulted in a standstill, hindering any action to tackle the underlying problems. The participatory process described here aimed to enable a constructive dialogue on the root causes of the issues. The process ultimately also led to the development of an action plan that proposes an integrated set of gray and green measures to reduce flood risk, including dykes, walls and urban wetland reservoirs (green spaces). Furthermore, it suggested adjustments of regulatory tools and municipal agreements to enhance long-term nature-based water management in the area. The Water Dialogues served as an innovative instrument to enable exchange between different stakeholder groups with diverging interests and to find a common ground that can inform water governance and management in the district, but also in Panama city as a whole. This enabled a shift from a ‘discourse’ of blaming others into a constructive process identifying the root causes of flood risk and taking joint action.

Overview

Type of instrument:

Knowledge, communication and innovation instruments›Communication/awareness raising

Challenges addressed

Water management (e.g. reuse)
Watershed restoration/water quality
Flood risk: pluvial and fluvial / soil permeability
Social cohesion
Nature appropriation / stewardship
Reconnection to the biosphere / environmental education

Consideration of nature-based solutions:

The dialogues facilitated a participatory learning process to identify the root causes of risk and stimulate innovative responses, such as "Building with Nature". This is particularly relevant as the Juan Diaz neighborhood overlaps with the protected Ramsar site Bahía de Panamá.

Targeted (peri-)urban areas:

Blue areas

Green areas for water management

Derelict areas

Urban green space connected to grey infrastructure

Good practice characteristics:

Effective

Locally appropriate

Potential to be replicated / upscaled

Inclusivity

Governance

Government body/bodies

Initiating body:

Municipality of Panama City

Instrument design:

Details about how the instrument was designed:

At the request of the Panama City Municipality, a team of Dutch disaster risk reduction experts conducted a scoping mission to assess ways to reduce flood risk issues in the city. One of the main recommendations given to the municipality was to initiate Water Dialogues to initiate a platform for learning, exchange and coordination on water management in the area for relevant stakeholders.

Involvement of non-governmental actors:

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

Private sector, corporate, business

Citizens or community groups / NGOs

Type of actor involvement:

Civil society consultation through e.g. workshops, surveys

Instrument implementation:

Type of involvement:

The public was actively involved in the dialogue process by participating in the Water Dialogues, which provided a platform to facilitate a new inclusive process of water management in the area. In these dialogues, there was also regular participation by Dutch water experts, local communities, different ministries, water utilities, Communal Boards, municipal departments, private developers, research organisations and NGO’s. In addition, local communities also participated in actions to clean out sewers in an effort to reduce flood risks.

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:

Private: household, real estate developer, business , financial

Researchers, university

Citizens or community groups (CBOs), NGOs

Financing

Sources of funding:

Public national budget

Budget:

Unknown

Details about instrument financing:

The involvement of the municipality of Panama City was funded by the Dutch government. The Inter-American Development Bank funded a hydrological study on the impact of landfills on flooding of neighborhoods.

Monitoring, evaluation and impacts

Achieved outcomes and impacts:

The most tangible result of the Water Dialogues was an action plan recommending a set of interlinked green and gray solutions for flood risk management as well as providing a risk zone map and regulatory recommendations. Community action to clean up existing drainage systems resulted in immediate benefits: Heavy rains caused by Hurricane Otto in November 2016 ended up having a minor impact on the neighborhood where the process had been implemented. The dialogues were also crucial in restoring the confidence of the affected communities in the (municipal) authorities to solve the flooding problem, while the municipal authorities benefitted from the dialogues in the form of improved cooperation.

Success factors and lessons learned:

The Dialogues highlight the importance of establishing an inclusive participatory process when searching for holistic measures to decrease flood risks in densely populated areas. By enabling a dialogue between relevant stakeholders, a ‘discourse’ of blaming others could be shifted into a constructive process identifying the root causes of flood risk and taking joint action. The community action to clean up the sewage system is likely to have strengthened environmental awareness and stewardship of the participants. Similar water dialogues can be replicated in other contexts that are marked by diverging stakeholder views and interests on specific water management topics.

Sources and further information

References

List of references:

Wetlands International (2019): Living with water & wetlands: flood risk reduction in Panama City. Available at: https://www.wetlands.org/casestudy/living-water-wetlands-flood-risk-reduction-panama-city/ (Accessed: 31 January 2023).

PANORAMA (2017): Promoting green spaces for urban flood management. Available at: https://panorama.solutions/en/solution/promoting-green-spaces-urban-flood-management-0 (Accessed: 31 January 2023).

Wetlands International (no date): Landscape scale Disaster Risk Reduction and the role of wetland ecosystems. Available at: blob:https://www.wetlands.org/d738f2eb-1ed5-4bd1-95dc-27da57e45a89 (Accessed: 31 January 2023).

Photos

@ F. Canelon en Unsplash