Beyond the Guidebook: Federal Fisheries Perspective on RAINwater Management
Surrey Water Balance Model Forum
Hosted by the City of Surrey, the program for the Metro Vancouver Water Balance Model Forum in March 2009 was built around the HOW question as it pertains to green infrastructure:
- HOW will the City of Surrey get it built right;
- HOW will a consistent regional approach be achieved in Metro Vancouver?
The story of the Forum was told in a series of six stories published weekly on the Water Bucket website. Story #5 titled Provincial Context: Today’s Expectations are Tomorrow’s Standards for Green Infrastructure elaborated on the provincial and regional context that will inform local actions.
Downloadable Document:
The article below is extracted from Story #5. To download a PDF copy, click on Beyond the Guidebook: Federal Fisheries Perspective on RAINwater Management.
A Coordinated Approach
At the 2007 Beyond the Guidebook Seminar, Corino Salomi of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) complemented the provincial presentation with the federal perspective. This coordinated approach resulted in consistency of messaging by the two levels of governments.
Corino Salomi is Area Manager, Oceans, Habitat & Enhancement Branch, Lower Fraser Area. He represents DFO on the steering committees for both the Green Infrastructure Partnership and the Inter-Governmental Partnership (that is responsible for the Water Balance Model).
From Guidelines to Tools
“We are moving from guidelines to tools,” Corino Salomi noted when introducing the road-map for his presentation. “The purpose of the Beyond the Guidebook initiative is to help local governments and the development community establish what level of rainwater runoff volume reduction makes sense at the site, catchment and watershed scales.”
To read the complete story about his presentation, click on Moving from Stormwater Management to RAINwater Management: A Federal Fisheries Perspective.
Runoff-Based Approach
“Drainage practice is at a crossroad in the path defining the methodologies and applications used in rainwater management. Beyond the Guidebook makes a clear distinction between a rainfall-based approach and a runoff-based approach. The runoff-based methodology at the heart of Beyond the Guidebook has been incorporated in the new Water Balance Model.”
“The Beyond the Guidebook methodology will allow practitioners to assess both site-level rainwater management measures AND flood relief projects so that they can develop a watershed approach that addresses stream protection and/or restoration. In the process, practitioners will view the watershed and its streams from a much more holistic perspective.”
Protect Stream Health
“We now have the tools and the experience to ‘design with nature and move from stormwater management to RAINwater management”, Corino Salomi stated in his closing remarks.
He summarized by emphasizing that the objective is protect stream health, which is broader than how much volume one can infiltrate on a particular development.
“While we need to have volume reduction targets, at the end of the day it is how effectively we apply the suite of available rainwater management tools that will ultimately determine whether we will succeed in protecting stream health at a watershed scale.”
Originally posted on the Convening for Action Community-of-Interest in March 2009