Green Infrastructure

“Commencing with a launch announcement by the BC Minister of Environment in 2005, this community-of-practice has served an important function as the home for green infrastructure in British Columbia. Originally created to support the work of the Green Infrastructure Partnership, the community-of-practice now has a dual focus in supporting two interconnected initiatives, that is: EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process: and Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery in BC, which is led by Asset Management BC,” stated Mike Tanner, Waterbucket Chair.

“In 2016, the Partnership embarked upon a 6-year program of applied research to evolve EAP through a 3-stage building blocks process of testing, refining, and mainstreaming the methodology and metrics for financial valuation of stream systems. The program involved 9 case studies and 13 local governments and yielded 19 “big ideas” or foundational concepts. The program goal was to answer the question, how much should communities budget each year for maintenance and management of stream systems,” stated Tim Pringle.

During the period 2003 through 2010, the Green Infrastructure Partnership played a prominent role in leading change and assisting with implementation of the Water Sustainability Action Plan for British Columbia, primarily in the Metro Vancouver region. “I see my years of chairing the GIP as helping to get the ball rolling and ideas disseminated, on green infrastructure, all of which has subsequently been taken up by others to a much greater degree of implementation and success. Our efforts a decade ago moved the state of-the-art of green infrastructure to a more mainstream level,” said Paul Ham.

In 2007, the first Beyond the Guidebook guidance document provided a clear distinction between natural and engineered green infrastructure. “Two complementary strategies can ‘green’ a community and its infrastructure: first, preserving as much as possible of the natural green infrastructure; and secondly, promoting designs that soften the footprint of development,” wrote Susan Rutherford. “Green infrastructure design is engineering design that takes a ‘design with nature’ approach, to both mitigate the potential impacts of existing and future development and growth and to provide valuable services.”

In the 1990s, there was trouble in paradise. In response, the provincial government launched the Georgia Basin Initiative. It was all hands on deck and catalyst for the green infrastructure movement. “Knowing what we know, you have to build new political commitment and basically start all over again in a new crucible phase…where you coalition-build to develop a new shared vision, etc. The task at hand is about how to redefine things in a new political environment so you would be able to get a new vision and new political commitment,” stated Ray Fung.

Because the audience comprised players involved in the land professions, the BC Land Summit was a watershed moment for showcasing new ideas. “The session about the Ecological Accounting Process began with Tim Pringle detailing EAP and its nine demonstration applications in local governments in BC. Then I spoke about Year 1 of the three-year transition strategy to transfer the knowledge and methodology of EAP from the Partnership to VIU. We concluded with a pre-recorded video segment by Sam Gerrand about incorporating EAP into his Master’s thesis,” stated Anna Lawrence.

“Land use intensification and redevelopment – where does that water go? I see the answer having two faces for RISK and LIABILITY. You are creating a drainage demand by preventing rainwater from reaching building foundations or removing groundwater at depth. But the other face is the lost opportunity because the water resource is not being managed in either a coordinated or holistic manner. Creating a drainage demand is the more immediate consequence of land use intensification. The loss of groundwater as an option for water supply is a future reckoning,” stated Robert Hicks.

Kongjian Yu pioneered China’s “sponge city” concept—less concrete and more green spaces to exploit stormwater instead of fighting it. Metropolises all over the world are following suit. “Industrialized engineering solutions have messed up the whole water system globally. You have to solve the problem holistically, and the sponge city is a nature-based, holistic solution. It is inexpensive, and it can be done at a small or large scale. You can have your garden, but you also have to plan from the top. It is a sponge planet, it is a sponge countryside, it is a sponge urban district,” stated Konjian Yu.

“What is being done in the upland wilderness affects what goes on in the low land because the source of runoff and sediment that runs through urban areas is in the headwaters,” stated Younes Alila. “Forest hydrologists for over a century swept the dimension of frequency under the carpet in the name of the “public does not understand probability”. The rest is history and it has not turned out well. So, I made the conscious decision to make probability central to my outreach to the media, wider public, professionals, and scientists.”

“And then something happened. We just seemed to lose momentum in the 2010s. With the benefit of hindsight, others have made the same observation. We got bogged down in the implementation plan. We just talked about the burden on local governments from all the capital items that were arising from the completion of integrated stormwater management plans. Coincidentally, this was just as the region’s needs became dominated by transportation, transit, active transportation and cycling. And then we were hit by the pandemic in 2020 and this huge retirement wave,” stated Ray Fung.

“As a matter of policy, the Province was quite deliberate in the sense that we wanted to push the boundaries of how municipal infrastructure was developed. We knew that we were going to have to do this under pretty strict fiscal constraints. And so that is why innovation became so important. We used the slogan The New Business As Usual to convey the message that, for change to really occur, practices that until then had been viewed as the exception must become the norm moving forward. With the new grant programs, we had some funding to support innovation,” stated Dale Wall.

“And isn’t that how turning that supertanker of thinking happens? Just incrementally, then by gosh, we end up going in a whole different direction than we were when we started,” stated Joan Sawicki, Parliamentary Secretary for the Georgia Basin Initiative. Launched in 1994, the GBI was a call to action by the provincial government led by Premier Mike Harcourt. The living legacy of the GBI is embedded in and embodied by the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Educational Initiative. The IREI is now in Year 13 and provides peer-based education among local governments.

“When I look back at our history, I think wow, how did we do so much applied research. We had a need and Hans Schreier had grad students who were interested in doing the research. Win-win,” stated Richard Boase. “This research was in pursuit of making changes to the fabric of our urbanized areas. I was so encapsulated by what I saw around me, and the need for change, that my mind was always racing. And I needed to find ways to do research into what we were talking about.”

“There are so many different parts to EAP. And with each part you can go down a distinct pathway that helps local governments. I am very focused on the 3-year transition strategy because Year One was just trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible. It was a juggling process with many moving parts and trying to keep them all in balance. But Year One is now behind us. We are envisioning other areas of research as potential EAP projects.. And so, we look forward to sharing our EAP experience at the BC Land Summit,” stated Anna Lawrence.