Commentary on Effective Rainwater/Stormwater Management and Green Infrastructure to Achieve Watershed Health

In British Columbia, the Local Government Act vests the responsibility for drainage with municipalities, and British Columbia case law makes clear the responsibility of municipalities to manage runoff volume to prevent downstream impacts. An increasingly important corollary to that responsibility is the need to work from the regional down to the site scale, to maintain and advance watershed health to ensure that both water quantity and quality will be sustained to meet both ecosystem and human health needs. British Columbia municipalities exerts control over rainwater runoff volume through their land development and infrastructure policies, practices and standards. To assist municipalities understand what this means, the Green Infrastructure Partnership has prepared a Commentary that identifies specific actions and commitments for protecting watershed health. The Commentary is part of the curriculum for the Learning Lunch Seminar Series, a precedent-setting approach to delivering continuing education to local government practitioners in the places where they work. Vancouver Island is the pilot region. “We have emphasized the connections surrounding ‘why we do it’ – watershed health and all that entails (quantity and quality) and the need for drainage actions to be integrated with all of the other policy and actions, to truly be effective – that is, thinking and integrating regionally down to the site scale”, states Susan Rutherford, speaking on behalf of the Green Infrastructure Partnership.

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Commentary on Effective Rainwater Mgmt – April. 2008 (360p)

Author Green Infrastructure Partnership

Date April 2008