“The urban forest needs to be recognized as that key element of green infrastructure,” said Paul Hambidge, an arborist with the City. “It’s a very precious asset. We need to preserve and maintain that as well as enhance it for the future.”
“Sustainable and Resilient Communities” by Stephen Coyle is step-by-step guidebook for urban planners and urban designers explains how to create and implement an actionable plan for making neighborhoods, communities, and regions more environmentally healthy, resource-conserving, and economically resilient.
Fiscal constraints provide a powerful impetus for doing business differently. Green infrastructure is part of a holistic approach to ‘achieve more with less’
“And in the face of international scientific consensus on the reality and risks of climate change and global warming, Canada’s engineers have decided it’s time deal with the impacts, which are already being felt in many regions of the country,” wrote Richard L. Rogers
“In British Columbia, we are seeing opportunities to bring together two streams of thinking: watershed-based planning and infrastructure asset management. This is a remarkable shift. A catalyst for holistic outcomes is this financial challenge: the initial capital cost of infrastructure is about 20% of the life-cycle cost,” states Kim Stephens.
Katherine Baer (120p)
American Rivers
More communities are beginning to understand that economic vitality and resilience to climate change rest on adaptation strategies that provide multiple benefits for every public dollar invested.
Kim Stephens (120p) – 2010
In both Canada and the United States, light bulbs are going on about the inter-connectedness of green infrastructure and water sustainability, and the implications for watershed health.
Mayor Dianne Watts – City of Surrey
A municipally-owned utility that will be responsible for the DE systems in Surrey. The first system will be built in City Centre under the new City Hall using ground source heat exchange as the primary energy supply.
“Vancouver has continued to add to its urban forest by planting another 3,000 street trees this winter. The total number of street trees in Vancouver’s 22 districts now stands at 138,000, compared to only 80,000 back in 1990,” wrote Steve Whysall.
According to Nora Beck, “the Rainwater-in-Context intiative urges modification because lot-level standards alone deliver lower overall performance than holistically-planned shared systems at the community or watershed scale. ”
