The three points approach (3PA) applied to two Chinese and four European cities for knowledge exchange on stormwater challenges and strategies

Urban stormwater is sometimes a risk, sometimes a resource. To address both aspects, the Three Points Approach (3PA) is advocated. This research applied the 3PA to map stormwater approaches in two Chinese and four European cities. While all cities have targets for the Technical Design Domain, none have targets for all domains; and thereby lack interventions to maximize benefits of frequent small events in the Day-to-Day Domain or minimize flood risks of rare large events in the Extreme Domain. Using open global precipitation data cities’ stormwater targets were expressed as more comparable rain depths, demonstrating that event depths within the Day-to-Day Domain in Chinese cities, cover much of the same range as those within the Technical Design Domain in the European cities. Expressing targets as depths in the context of the 3PA framework may facilitate transdisciplinary and transnational knowledge sharing, paving the way for management strategies covering all three domains.