Ecological Accounting Process

IDEA FOR EAP SEEDED IN BEYOND THE GUIDEBOOK 2015: “My conversation with Ian Rogalski at the end of 2014 was the spark that set me off on a six-year program of applied research to develop the methodology and metrics for EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process,” recalled Tim Pringle, EAP Chair and adjunct professor at Vancouver Island University

19 May 2025 - Posted in Milestone Moments in EAP History

Note to Reader:

Released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in November 2015, the guidance document Beyond the Guidebook 2015: Moving Towards “Sustainable Watershed Systems, through Asset Management” concludes with the concept of Twin Pillars of Stream System Integrity. One pillar is Water Balance Accounting and the other is Ecological Accounting.

Tim Pringle and Kim Stephens created the image to introduce EAP as an idea whose time had come. The article below is structured under four topic headings to provide historical context and perspective on what led up to this watershed moment.

Beyond the Guidebook 2015 is a deliverable flowing from the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative. It is a progress report on how local governments ‘learn by doing’ to implement affordable and effective science-based practices. It is the third in a series that builds on Stormwater Planning: A Guidebook for British Columbia.

TOPIC 1: Story Behind the Story of how the concept of the Twin Pillars of Stream System Integrity came to be

“It was December 2014 in Victoria when Ian Rogalski, an economist with Environment Canada, attended the Partnership’s annual year-end Water Sustainability Workshop,” recalls Tim Pringle. “As the legendary Erik Karlsen would often say, it takes a conversation to bring ideas forth. Ian and I had a conversation which is a key part of the story behind the story of EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process.”

“Ian explained Environment Canada’s interest in what he broadly defined as ecosystem governance. He also mused about citizens’ willingness-to-pay for ecosystem services. That was the moment when Kim Stephens reminded me of the Brooklyn Creek experience in the Town of Comox. Dots started to connect.”

Tim Pringle’s conversation with Ian Rogalski was a culminating moment that set his EAP journey in motion

“The Partnership had been building to this moment. For some time, we had been engaged in an exploratory process to develop a pragmatic approach that would work for local government. An important point of reference is Kim’s article titled Integrated Rainwater Management: Move to a Levels-of-Service Approach to Sustainable Service Delivery.”

“The article was published by Asset Management BC in its January 2011 newsletter. Four years later, my conversation with Ian Rogalski at the end of 2014 was the spark that set me off on a 6-year program of applied research.”

“Kim’s article concluded that by ‘designing with nature’, a local government could make a very strong case for having a higher level of service – with ‘assets’ that appreciate, not depreciate, at a lower life-cycle cost.”

Town of Comox experience provided early inspiration for EAP

“In 2012, in the Primer on Integrated Rainwater and Groundwater Management for Lands on Vancouver Island and Beyond, the Partnership provided early guidance for viewing a watershed through an asset management lens,” continues Kim Stephens.

“This was only about a year after Glen Brown of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs introduced his vision for Asset Management through Sustainable Service Delivery at a peer-based learning event organized by the Partnership in the Comox Valley.”

“Brooklyn Creek was one of two demonstration application in Stage 1 of the program to test, refine and mainstream the Ecological Accounting Process in three stages of applied research,” reports Tim Pringle. “Three big ideas emerged, one of which is that the package of ecological services is the range of community uses for a stream corridor.”

“That idea crystallized when I was in conversation with Marvin Kamenz, the director of planning with the Town of Comox. Marvin likes to give me credit for our shared aha moment, but he was the one who had the inspiration to define the term! It came when he was reflecting on local government realities.”

TOPIC 2: Washington State research produced a road map and that led to the Twin Pillars concept

“In the 1990s, research by Richard Horner and Chris May at the University of Washington provided us with a science-based framework for understanding what stream system integrity means. We describe this as our roadmap because it has guided the work of the Partnership for three decades,” continues Tim Pringle.

“The Partnership had put so much energy into advancing the Water Balance Methodology. But we were stalled in the 2010s because of inertia in local government observed Kim Stephens, Ted van der Gulik and Richard Boase from their experience as water balance champions. And then Glen Brown’s vision for sustainable service delivery gave the water balance mission new life.”

“The bold decision just before the Partnership released Beyond the Guidebook 2015 was to introduce the Twin Pillars concept to link various initiatives in one picture. It was literally at the last minute that we made what has proven to be a consequential decision.”

Hydrology is the Engine that Powers Ecological Services

“The Twin Pillars schematically illustrates the multiple land and water processes that can be in play in a region, the potential interactions between processes, and the interactions among the local government partners participating in the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative. It also conceptualizes how a regional Water Sustainability Plan could be the integrator of those processes,” explains Kim Stephens.

“The idea for twin pillars launched the EAP journey! We seeded the idea on page 156 of the 158-page Beyond the Guidebook 2015,” states Tim Pringle. “Kim and I described EAP in a mere three paragraphs. “We foreshadowed what was to come with this succinct statement: The EAP project will address the challenges of determining financial values for goods and services drawn from natural systems.”

“We had our starting point for achieving the Real Estate Foundation goal of balancing use and conservation of land because they are of equal value. When I was the Executive Director, I had introduced and my governors had embraced this goal as the Foundation’s mantra some two decades earlier.”

TOPIC 3: Seed an idea to create a self-fulfilling prophecy

“A teachable year heightens awareness, leads to a sense of urgency, and engenders political will to implement necessary changes in how communities service land and respect water. In 2015, it was Bob Sanford who concluded that we had crossed an invisible threshold. Bob got it right. 2015 is the teachable year that changed everything,” recalls Tim Pringle.

“In Beyond the Guidebook 2015, the Partnership boldly foreshadowed that the drought could potentially be the catalyst for widespread implementation of tools and experience gained by local government leaders over the previous decade. Apply an understanding of watershed systems as infrastructure assets to turn the clock back, restore watershed health and build water-resilient communities.”

Context for Cascading Objectives

“Beyond the Guidebook 2015 presents a framework for integration of three cascading objectives. At the time, their inter-relationship was not yet widely known or understood. This was mainly because Sustainable Service Delivery was a relatively new way-of-thinking for many, and especially for local governments that were only then embarking on an asset management planning process,” explains Kim Stephens.

“So, we created a branding graphic which is included at the front-end of Beyond the Guidebook 2015 to provide the reader with a mind-map. An article published in Watermark magazine in Summer 2015 foreshadowed the Cascading Objectives way-of-thinking as an integrating framework.”

Local governments in BC are challenged with the question of how best to move forward with asset management and protection of watershed health in light of two considerations: a changing climate; and community expectations to provide higher levels-of-service at reduced levels-of-cost.

The Summer 2015 issue of Watermark Magazine included an article that described how the Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC was championing “asset management for sustainable service delivery” a decade ago.

To Learn More:

To read the article, download a copy of Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery: Supporting the Vision for Integration of Natural Systems Thinking into “The BC Framework”

TOPIC 4: Road Map for Stream System Integrity

“The science of land use change has not changed,” continues Kim Stephens. “Communities ignore it at their peril. The ground-breaking work by Richard Horner, Chris May et al was done in the pre-Internet era. Somewhere, Chris May says, his original work may still exist in paper archives. But nobody knows.”

“Without a record of the oral history, an understanding of both the context and the impact of their findings would be lost forever. Their enduring legacy is that they applied systems thinking, investigated whole systems in place, identified four limiting factors, and definitively established their order-of-priority.”

“What we did not fully appreciate three decades ago was that we should place equal importance on changes in hydrology and loss of riparian integrity. So, for the longest time we put our energy into mainstreaming the Water Balance Methodology. It was only when his conversation with Ian Rogalski motivated Tim Pringle to develop the Ecological Accounting Process did we realize that it was within our grasp to develop complementary metrics to make real the idea that hydrology is the engine that powers ecological services.”

“For two decades, Dr. Chris May had a leadership position in Washington State local government – first with the City of Seattle and then with Kitsap County. The latter was his living laboratory. Because he was Director of the Surface & Stormwater Division, Chis May could put science into practice.”

To learn more about Chris May and his work:

Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. The edition published on March 28, 2023 featured Dr. Chris May of Washington State in a conversational interview about his ground-breaking Puget Sound research in the 1990s that correlated land use changes and the consequences for stream and riparian health.

Waterbucket eNews stories are structured in three parts: One-Minute Takeaway, Editor’s Perspective and Context for Busy Reader, and the Story Behind the Story. To read the complete storyline published on March 28th 2023, download a PDF copy of Living Water Smart in British Columbia: History and application of a science-based road map for either protecting or restoring stream system integrity