Current Sociology

Please welcome our Sociologist of the Month for April 2021, Marie Leth Meilvang (UCL, University College Lillebaelt, Denmark). Her article for Current Sociology, From rain as risk to rain as resource: Professional and organizational changes in urban rainwater management, is Free Access this month.

Marie Leth Meilvang

Could you please tell us about yourself? How did you come to your field of study?

M.L. Meilvang: Through my education as a sociologist I have worked with issues relating to urban sociology and specifically urban development and urban planning in relation to climate adaptation and processes of ‘greening’ of the city. I have previously analyzed civic participation in urban planning processes. Following this work I became interested in professionals as actors in these processes. I am particularly interested in the role of moral and political valuations in professional work.

What prompted you to research the area of your article, “From rain as risk to rain as resource: Professional and organizational changes in urban rainwater management”?

M.L. Meilvang: In this project, I investigated recent changes in urban rainwater management practices by analyzing the work of urban rainwater professionals. I became interested in rainwater, because it is clear that cities are changing the way they manage rainwater as a result of climate change, from transporting rain underground via pipes to keeping rainwater on the surface in green structures. I became interested in the role of professionals, especially engineers, in this infrastructural transformation, and how the change in technical solutions also signify a change in the way rain is valued.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

M.L. Meilvang: My article analyzes the way engineers working with urban climate adaptation reconceptualize how rain in cities is valued. This is a shift from conceptualizing rain as a risk to the urban environment to a resource that can be utilized in urban development. This shift is driven in large part by a specific group of engineers. In the changing practices of managing rain, new organizational patterns are emerging for dealing with urban rain. Specifically, we see more cooperation between specific professionals and the organization mandated to tackle climate adaptation.

Do you have any links to images, documents or other pieces of research which build on or add to the article? Or a suggested reading list?

M.L. Meilvang: I have written another paper on the moral investments of professionals in building the green city, and on how moral questions and practices are inherently a part of professional work, also work that is often conceptualized as science-based and technical: https://academic.oup.com/jpo/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jpo/joaa026/6044172. For more interesting analysis of the change in urban rainwater management, I highly recommend the book by Andrew Karvonen, Politics of Urban Runoff: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/politics-urban-runoff.