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      Tacit knowledge in water management: a case study of Sponge City

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            Abstract

            Sustainable, resilient urban water management is fundamental to good environmental and public health. As an interdisciplinary task, it faces enormous challenges from project complexity, network dynamics, and the tacit nature of knowledge being communicated between actors involved in design, decisions and delivery. Among others, some critical and persistent challenges to the implementation of sustainable urban water management include the lack of knowledge and expertise, lack of effective communication and collaboration, and lack of shared understanding and context. Using the Chinese Sponge City programme as a case study, this paper draws on the perspectives of Polanyi and Collins to investigate the extent to which knowledge can be used and exchanged between actors. Using Collins’ conceptualisation of the terrain of tacit knowledge, the study identifies the use of relational, somatic, and collective tacit knowledge in the Sponge City pilot project. Structured interviews with 38 people working on a Sponge City pilot project provided data that was rigorously analysed using qualitative thematic analysis. The paper is original in using theories of tacit knowledge to explain barriers and pathways for information and messages being communicated between actors in urban water management. The methods and results provide the groundwork for analysing the access and mobilisation of tacit knowledge in the Sponge City pilot project, with relevance for other complex, interdisciplinary environmental projects and programmes.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            UCL Open: Environment Preprint
            UCL Press
            24 June 2021
            Affiliations
            [1 ] Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, UCL
            [2 ] Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne
            Author notes
            Author information
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4089-127X
            Article
            10.14324/111.444/000083.v1
            91ad4377-0269-42a6-9c99-c076da8c697d

            This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

            History
            : 24 June 2021

            The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
            Environmental management, Policy & Planning,General social science
            Tacit knowledge,urban planning,Integrated urban water management,Flooding (all forms),Social capital,Environmental policy and practice,knowledge transfer,Cities and climate change,Sponge City

            Comments

            Date: 16 September 2021

            Handling Editor: Prof Michael E. McClain

            Editorial decision: Request revision. The Handling Editor requested revisions; the article has been returned to the authors to make this revision.

            2021-09-22 15:46 UTC
            +1

            Date: 25 June 2021

            Handling Editor: Prof Michael E. McClain

            This article is a preprint article and has not been peer-reviewed. It is under consideration following submission to UCL Open: Environment for open peer review.

            2021-06-25 08:44 UTC
            +1

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