Greening the Urban Environment & Protecting Stream Health: The role played by ‘Green Streets’
Capture Rainwater Where It Falls
Interest in the Water Balance Model for British Columbia on the part of faculty and students at the University of the Fraser Valley led to an invitation to the Inter-Governmental Partnership to contribute content for the Hydrology 303 under-graduate course.
Jim Dumont, Engineering Applications Authority, delivered a lecture on greening the urban environment and protecting stream health. His presentation addressed the role that can be played by ‘green streets’ that are designed to capture rainfall and reduce rainwater runoff.
Jim Dumont compared Seattle’s Street Edge Alternative (SEA) approach with a design that the Township of Langley has implemented. He highlighted that a critical difference in applications is the relatively large width of residential properties in Seattle – in those areas where SEA streets have been retrofitted – versus narrow widths in Metro Vancouver. This has major implications for provision of driveway access.
To learn more about the lecture by Jim Dumont, click on Hydrology 303 at University of the Fraser Valley: Students introduced to real-world applications of the Water Balance Model.
Links to YouTube video clips
Jim Dumont contrasts BC green street applications with Seatte’s SEA streets (3:43)
Jim Dumont explains a road cross-section design standard implemented in Langley (2:17)
Presentation Slides:
To download the set of four PowerPoint slides that provided the backdrop for the Green Streets portion of the lecture, click on Greening the Urban Environment & Protecting Stream Health: The role played by Green Streets.
Posted December 2009