Vancouver Island Coordinating Team adds Water Balance Model perspective to
As a sponsor of ‘green value’ initiatives on Vancouver Island, the inter-agency Water Balance Model Vancouver Island Coordinating Team (VICT) participated in the Creating Our Future Workshop on June 3rd, 2007. The workshop was held under the umbrella of Convening for Action on Vancouver Island (CAVI) and was a consultation opportunity for local governments that are interested in implementing infrastructure practices and regulation that result in green value.
The workshop iwas also about celebrating and building on success. Case studies encompassed a range of situations, urban and rural, from the shoreline to the watershed, and from the development site to the municipality. Designed to inform decision-makers in local government, the workshop was structured in three parts:
1. Defining a common vocabulary
2. Roundtable sharing
3. Convening for Action on Vancouver Island case studies
For background on how the workshop came about and what it hoped to achieve, please click here.
Vancouver Island Coordinating Team
Formed in 2006, VICT is an arm of the Inter-Governmental Partnership that is responsible for the Water Balance Model for British Columbia. It supports outreach programs throughout Vancouver Island to encourage water-centric planning and a “design-with-nature” approach to land use and development. For background on VICT, please click here.
VICT Chair Jay Bradley notes, “Because the Water Balance Model is a performance-based design system, it is a tool of choice that can help planners, engineers and developers optimize ‘green value’ at all site scales in a cost-effective manner. There is therefore a strong linkage between the WBM and green value – the WBM allows the decision-maker to design source controls to manage run-off without deleterious impacts on stream health.”
“This Workshop, and the Gaining Ground Summit overall, are important to support because they help reduce the gap between upfront costs and long-term sustainable value,” explained Chris Jensen, VICT Co-Chair. “This forum provides us with a great opportunity to showcase the WBM as a green-value tool, especially as we get set to launch the Water Balance Model powered by QUALHYMO in late 2007.”
Project Coordinator Kim Stephens added that “there is strategic value in seizing this opportunity to put water-centric planning in the equation when sustainability and stewardship are the objectives.”
CAVI Partnership
The CAVI Partnership includes the British Columbia Water & Waste Association, the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, the provincial Ministries of Environment and Community Services, and the Green Infrastructure Partnership.
Previously, the CAVI Leadership Team made a presentation at the 2007 Annual Conference of the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities which was held in Qualicum Beach. For more on that story, please click here.
Posted May 2007
Updated December 2009