Governance assessment of a blue-green infrastructure project in a small size city in Belgium. The potential of Herentals for a leapfrog to water sensitive

Climate change, population growth and land-use change have increased the risk of urban floods. Urban floods cause severe damages to cities and their inhabitants, and they are expected to increase over time. Consequently, urban adaptation is required to shift from traditional infrastructure to Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI). Until recently, studies on BGI implementation have centred around large cities in developed countries. Meanwhile, medium and small size cities have received less attention. According to the Urban Water Management Transition Framework (UWMTF), cities can leapfrog towards more ‘water sensitive’ practices. Although leapfrogging is context-dependent, our understanding of how governance factors support leapfrogging remains embryonic. This paper contributes to the scholarly understanding of the governance factors that support and limit leapfrogging. By applying the Governance Assessment Tool (GAT) and considering three catalytic factors that underpin leapfrogging, this research assessed the process to implement the BGI project named Olympiadelaan in Herentals, Belgium. Overall, the governance context support was assessed as moderate. The regional and provincial governments play a key role in reaching this moderate level of support. This moderate support helps the city level to speed up its urban water management transition, but it is not enough to skip the states in the UWMTF.