Water Balance Model Partners Forum Highlights the Hydrologic Function of Soil and Trees
The Inter-Governmental Partnership held a Water Balance Model Partners Forum in March 2007 so that Partners could share success stories and lessons learned in implementing green infrastructure. During the Roundtable Sharing portion of the Partners Forum, there was emphasis on the use of soil and trees to achieve beneficial rainwater management outcomes.
The CITY OF COURTENAY was the first BC municipality to implement a policy requiring a minimum soil depth on development sites. Sandy Pridmore reported that “Because the City places importance on the soil sponge as a rainwater management tool, we are currently exploring options to ensure that developers and house builders fulfil their obligations to provide and preserve the minimum required depth.”
One of the benefits of the Water Balance Model Partnership is networking. The City of Courtenay and CITY OF SURREY have been sharing their lessons learned. David Hislop highlighted the City of Surrey experience in soil depth enforcement in the East Clayton Sustainable Community.
Richard Boase of the DISTRICT OF NORTH VANCOUVER described the partnership between the University of BC and the three North Shore municipalities to implement the precedent-setting Tree Canopy Research Project.
“While considerable research has been done in the natural environment, very little has been in an urban setting anywhere in North America. We have installed 60 tree canopy climate stations across the North Shore.”
To view Richard’s presentation, please click on this link to The Story of the UBC Tree Canopy Interception Research Project
Sarah Howie showed examples of rain gardens and infiltration swales to illustrate how the THE CORPORATION OF DELTA is implementing landscape-based solutions that solve drainage issues and create community amenities. Shown below are before and after photos for a parking lot rain garden constructed in Summer 2006 at Cougar Canyon Elementary School in Delta.
For details of this and other projects, please click on this link to .Implementation of Green Infrastructure in Delta
The Partners Forum provided a timely opportunity to roll out ‘Beyond the Guidebook’, a runoff-based approach to drainage modeling that connects the dots between source control evaluation and stream health assessment.
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For the complete story on the Partners Forum, please click here.