Rainwater Management

Beyond the Guidebook 2015: City of Courtenay's Nancy Gothard shares her perspective on the role of champions in leading change in the Georgia Basin

Note to Reader:

Released in November 2015, Beyond the Guidebook 2015 is the third in a series that builds on Stormwater Planning: A Guidebook for British Columbia. The latter is the provincial foundation for the rainwater component of Liquid Waste Management Plans, a regulatory tool. The Guidebook is complemented by the ‘Beyond the Guidebook Report Series’, the ‘Beyond the Guidebook Primer Series’ and the ‘Watershed Case Profile Series’.

Beyond the Guidebook 2015 is a deliverable flowing from the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Educational Initiative. By 2017, a program goal is that all local governments would understand how to achieve “Sustainable Watershed Systems, through Asset Management” (supply source, stream, aquifer).

Convening for Action in the Comox Valley Region of Vancouver Island

Structured in four parts, ‘Beyond the Guidebook 2015’ is a progress report on how local governments on the east coast of Vancouver Island and in the Lower Mainland are ‘learning by doing’ to implement affordable and effective science-based practices.

Part D tells five regional stories, including that for the Comox Valley region. At the conclusion, Nancy Gothard provided her reflections by writing an op-end on the ‘regional team approach’ and how local governments share and learn from each other. She is the Environmental Planner with the City of Courtenay.

Role of Champions in Leading Change

“The approach to watershed‐based planning and water sustainability is happening through champions because, apart from some high‐level enabling legislation, there is no strong top‐down mandate ‘requiring’ that we do these things. I think in most organizations it is not a top‐down priority,” wrote Nancy Gothard.

“Where it has surfaced as a top‐down priority, it has been because individual champions have ensured that it was considered at those higher levels. That so many people earnestly working on this have reached the same point suggests that we are on the tipping point of a breakthrough in collaboration.”