Green Infrastructure

“LID is a practical and cost-effective approach to reducing and/or better managing the impacts of urbanization on our landscape in order to leave a better place for our children and grandchildren,” stated Bert van Duin. “The urban environments that we can build for them using LID will be healthier, more sustainable and use less natural resources then the ones we grew up in. “

A number of British Columbia municipalities have embraced the concept of “sustainable streets” and have recently completed flagship projects. The City of Vancouver's Crown Street has the highest profile as the result of a $1.4 million investment in road reconstruction along a three-block stretch in the City's Southlands, an older neighbourhood.

Ray Fung (120p)
The Topsoil Primer set will help local governments ensure that a healthy layer of topsoil is a priority during development and re-development. If we can show how to get the topsoil part right, then other parts of the water sustainability equation are more likely to follow.

Have a look at some of the Water Balance Model slideshow presentations that have been made to industry and government groups starting in 2001.

The EMCO Corporation collaborated with the inter-governmental Water Balance Model Partnership to sponsor and organize three regional technical sessions on Rainwater Management in British Columbia during the period 2005-2006. The third in the series was held in Victoria in June 2006.

This study recommends best practices that will help communities in British Columbia better understand the impacts of higher and lower density on their water resources. The findings indicate that low-density developments may not always be the preferred strategy for protecting water resources.

The Green Infrastructure Community-of-Interest is a communication platform for informing British Columbians about a 'design with nature' approach to community development.

Developed by a BC-based Inter-Governmental Partnership as an extension of Stormwater Planning: A Guidebook for British Columbia, the Water Balance Model for Canada enables users to compare scenarios for rainwater runoff volume reduction in order to achieve a light 'hydrologic footprint'. The tool is developed by a consortium of local, regional, provincial and federal agencies.

The Irrigation Industry Association of British Columbia (IIABC) has developed this Landscape Irrigation Scheduling Calculator to assist irrigators in developing a proper irrigation schedule taking into account the location, landscape, soil and irrigation system operation parameters. The calculator will provide the irrigator with the number of days to water, the irrigation run time for each day and the maximum run time per cycle.

In 2005, the Master Municipal Construction Documents Association (MMCD) published a Draft Green Design Supplement. The Green Design Supplement provides criteria and guidelines to design more sustainable (i.e. green) municipal infrastructure.