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Paper short abstract

Climate adaptation through nature-based solutions can become a circular economy where stormwater becomes a recurring resource. This study shows that such a perspective could bring new light to a more ecocentric and non-market-based economy aligning with water flows.

Paper long abstract

Climate adaptation of stormwater through nature-based solutions is rarely seen as part of a circular economy. Based on interviews with engineers, planners, and ecologists working with stormwater management, this paper argues that it is necessary to question the anthropocentric view of the circular economy, where the main concerns are the materials used and reused by humans. The interviewees regard stormwater as a resource to many rather than a problem to drain as it is necessary for frogs and trees. The ontological shift of stormwater from something undesirable to wanted raises two important questions for how the circular economy could be extended: for whom is the circular economy, and what happens if there is no market involved?

First, the circular economy has largely been imagined as a utilitarian system for human use. The results from this study show how the needs of other organisms become a concern for a water utility when refusing to mow the grass around the stormwater ponds during dry periods or introducing an alder carr for retaining stormwater instead of a open water dam to improve the habitat for insects rather than strolling humans.

Secondly, the circular economy literature assumes, similarly to economics, that scarcity and markets as necessary conditions. Water is indeed a scarce resource for those organisms who suffer from heat and lack of water, but the interviewees are not referring to a market. Hence, stormwater management through nature based solutions open up the possibility to reinterpret what an economy is and for whom.