Worldwide, urban areas are being challenged to improve the conventional stormwater management regime (i.e. the totality of beliefs, rules and practices
that guide water management activities). Illustrated as the Water Sensitive City, the envisioned new regime aims to solve water problems, to adapt to future
uncertainties (e.g. increase of extreme events), to create a more liveable urban environment and to reflect the aspiration of the community related to
water. Brussels-Capital Region (BCR) is a representative case for experiencing a transition towards a WsC. This research explores the hypothesis of how
alternative actions contribute to a transition in the water regime in dense urban areas with a low level of water-related hazards by investigating different case
studies located in BCR. The capacity of alternative actions to trigger changes in the regime is conditioned by the processes that produce them and by their
influence on the emergence of subsequent actions. More specifically, the co-production of alternative actions provides viable solutions to current
challenges and sets the conditions for trying the principles of the new regime in a particular context. The new stormwater management regime that favours this
process relies on an adaptable infrastructure, as well as a different type of practice of who plans, designs, constructs and manages this new infrastructure,
and how.