STORY OF EAP BOOKLET: “EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process, is a financial tool to help streams survive” – released by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in April 2024
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.
The science-based foundation for the twin pillars is transformational research conducted by Dr. Richard Horner and Dr. Chris May at the University of Washington in the 1990s. Their research correlated land use changes with threshold impacts on stream health.
Why we need EAP to tackle the “Riparian Deficit”
“Human settlement degrades stream systems. What are the RISKS and COSTS when we fail to get it right with our land development and drainage policies and practices? A measure of the consequence is the Riparian Deficit. This applies to the regulated setback which is the interface between land and a stream,” stated Tim Pringle, creator of the Ecological Accounting Process and adjunct professor at Vancouver Island University.
“Use of EAP helps inform planning and budgeting for the management of riparian areas. It uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and BC Assessment data to calculate the financial value of a riparian system based on the area of the Streamside Protection and Enhancement Area (SPEA). Local governments can use a percentage of this value to budget for natural asset management.
“An EAP analysis also will support asset management by measuring the extent of land use intensity impacts on a stream system (sub-watershed). These alterations adjacent to stream systems result in impervious surface cover, reduced forest and vegetative areas and diversion of rainwater pathways into constructed drainage.”
“These impacts reduce the vitality of the SPEA and the health of a stream. Because an EAP analysis can report measures per parcel or per m² it offers a fine-grained assessment of areas providing riparian support for a stream or requiring increased attention to avoid loss and restoration costs,” concluded Tim Pringle.
To Learn More:
Download a copy of the Story of EAP Booklet.
