DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCE: A program goal for the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative is to embed ‘state-of-the-art’ hydrology in engineering ‘standard practice’ (April 2017)
Bring the ‘State-of-the-Art’ into ‘Standard Practice’
The Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative (IREI) is funded by the governments of Canada and British Columbia through 2018. The IREI program focuses on how to implement “Sustainable Watershed Systems, through Asset Management”. 
IREI deliverables are designed to bring hydrology state-of-the-art methodologies and tools into engineering ‘standard practice’.
The twin pillars of this whole-system, water balance approach are the Ecological Accounting Protocol and the Water Balance Methodology. The two are inter-connected. Three categories of deliverables make up the IREI program.
IREI Deliverables
A program of teaching, training and mentoring would ensure consistent understanding of WHY and HOW to apply methodologies and tools, and would build up practitioner capacity within local governments to achieve, over time, Sustainable Watershed Systems, through Asset Management. The three categories of IREI deliverables are:
- Ecological Accounting Protocol
- Water Balance Methodology / Model / Express
- Professional Development & Outreach
Mutually reinforcing, the three deliverables set the stage for embedding state-of-the-art hydrology in engineering ‘standard practice’.
Working together, they provide an integrated solution to inadequacies in current land use and drainage practice. Moreover, the Ecological Accounting Protocol (EAP) for valuing watersheds as infrastructure assets is the lynch-pin for driving change.
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