Convening for Action in British Columbia

The Convening for Action initiative is informing change in British Columbia through implementation of an outreach and continuing education program. “This program has a number of elements. While the main focus is on events organized under the Convening for Action umbrella, the program also includes making presentations at events organized by others,” stated Kim Stephens.

Rainwater harvesting workshops held in Vancouver and Victoria in mid-2005 were part of a national series. Peter Coombes (from Australia) was the featured speaker at the Vancouver event.

The program for the 2005 Rainwater Harvesting Workshop in Victoria was built around Klaus Koenig, German architect and consulting engineer. Klaus has been extensively involved with the subject of rainwater utilization for 20 years. The author of several books in German on the subject, his first English book on rainwater recycling, 'The Rainwater Technology Handbook, Rain Harvesting in Building', was published in 2001.

The program for the 2005 Rainwater Harvesting Workshop in Vancouver was built around Dr. Peter Coombes of the University of Newcastle in Australia. Dr. Coombes is an engineer and a microbiologist who has achieved international recognition as a result of challenging conventional wisdom and championing new approaches for Urban Water Cycle Management in Australia.

“The workshop demonstrated how local practioners are meeting the challenge of moving from planning to action. By bringing people together to share their experiences, effective implementation of the design with nature can be addressed through practical changes,” stated Kim Stephens.

“In British Columbia, school children learn about the hydrologic cycle in Grade Five. By high school they have forgotten about it. There is a parallel pattern in engineering education. The concept is re-taught in first year hydrology and then forgotten after graduation. These observations have provided an impetus for the BC Water Sustainability Committee to champion OUT = IN as the way to re-focus water supply planners,” stated Kim Stephens.

“A core message is that the OUT = IN equation is variable on both sides. Something to think about is that in mathematics one cannot solve for two variables with a single equation. In other words, it is time for practitioners to go back to the basics and re-think how we approach water supply analysis and planning,” noted Robert Hicks.

“The 3-day Okanagan Conference organized by the Canadian Water Resources Association in February 2005 was the kick-off event for a sustained education process that is designed to broaden the province-wide base for this shared vision: In a fully integrated landscape, water is the unifying element,” stated Ron Smith.

“The number one concern of local South Okanagan residents is the availability and quality of its water. Water was the main issue identified through public consultation by the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen,” reported David Arsenault.

“UBC-Okanagan provided the venue for this application of sustainability-on-the-ground. This was an outcome of a meeting with the Inter-Governmental Partnership, at which time we realized that UBC-Okanagan and the IGP shared a common objective in advancing the state-of-the-art for water management in the Okanagan,” stated Bernard Bauer