Frequently Asked Questions
What is Co-Design?
Co-design is the act of creating with stakeholder partners (cities, communities, counties, and organizations) specifically within the design development process to ensure the results meet the broad range of partners’ needs and are usable. Co-design may also be called participatory design.
Why Co-Design in stormwater management?
At the center of the co-design is an acknowledgment that improving regional stormwater outcomes requires cooperation of many partners. Stormwater management presents complex challenges; it involves regulations, infrastructure, environmental and human health, and real impacts to local communities. These complex challenges are too great to be tackled effectively by a single partner or discipline. Regulators, engineers, planners, researchers, customers, and other partners need to be brought in as active co-designers, to confront the big issues and develop innovative strategies to improve current efforts and co-create new solutions.
What does Co-Design look like with…
Cities, Counties, Public agencies: When a group of governments commit to sharing decision-making around a subject area. For example, how can jurisdictions commit to a more collective, coordinated regional approach for stormwater management and improved water quality outcomes? This could include developing multi-partner pilot projects, exploring innovative proofs of concept, and evaluating new efforts and adaptively scaling them. The summit will share examples.
Nonprofit groups, Community Organizations: Public agencies bring varying scales of operation, capacities and resources – and each organization has its own, unique mission and focus. How can these organizations come together to identify and map each group’s unique attributes and partner on deploying those advantages through new collaborations and public/private partnerships?
Local residents, neighborhoods: When a local government conducts listening sessions, local needs assessments, and works with local residents to iteratively work with people to solve local issues. Co-design is asking more than telling, listening more than informing, following up, and sharing decision-making with the public to shape how new collaborative approaches look on the ground.
What is meant by “regional”?
That’s up to all of us. This initiative is rooted in a recognition that we and our partners can do a lot more to function like a collective entity that operates at the watershed level, across jurisdictional boundaries. Partnering and participating in the work of this initiative and a process to develop a regional Stormwater Investment Plan is entirely voluntary – so it’s up to us to define how broadly we want to go with a regional approach.