CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION IN METRO VANCOUVER: “You have to go back and address the impacts of legacy development. To move the needle, communities must restore riparian areas,” stated Chris May, retired Surface & Stormwater Division Director, Kitsap County Public Works in Washington State
Note to Reader:
In November 2024, the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia released THE SYNOPSIS for the Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation in Metro Vancouver. The Chronicle is a sweeping narrative of the 30-year period from 1994 through 2024. The Chronicle is a layered package comprising four documents: the Chronicle of the Journey, Stories Within the Story, Synopsis and Executive Summary. The target audience for each layer is different.
The Synopsis is the third layer in the cascade. It is oriented to senior managers who have limited time to absorb what they need to know to make informed decisions. The Synopsis is visual and so can easily be skimmed in 20 minutes or less! This extract is from pages S20, S21 and S24.
Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative is a Legacy Program
“Beyond the Guidebook 2015 concludes with the Twin Pillars of Stream System Integrity to illustrate the IREI whole-system approach to green infrastructure and rainwater management. Hydrology and riparian integrity are of equal importance in a system,” wrote Kim Stephens, Synopsis author and Partnership Executive Director.
Sustainable Drainage Service Delivery
“The Water Balance Accounting pillar addresses changes in hydrology on land draining to the stream. The Ecological Accounting pillar addresses loss of riparian integrity within a stream corridor. An affordable and effective approach to building support for sustainable funding of the Drainage Service rests on these two pillars.”
Twin Pillars of Stream System Integrity
“We created the Twin Pillars to provide a roadmap for water and watershed sustainability. The Twin Pillars graphic conceptualizes the multiple land and water processes that can be in play in a region, the potential interactions between processes, and the interactions among IREI partners. It also conceptualizes how a regional Water Sustainability Plan could be the integrator of those processes.”
“EAP, the Ecological Accounting Process, is the culmination of a 25-year journey. This began with seminal research by Chris May, Richard Horner, and others at the University of Washington in the 1990s.”
Hydrology is the Engine that Powers Ecological Services
“In November 2015, release of Moving Towards “Sustainable Watershed Systems, through Asset Management” launched an educational process built around the twin pillars concept. Alignment with Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery: A BC Framework, released a year earlier through Asset Management BC, is the context for including asset management in the title.”
“The educational goal in creating the Twin Pillars concept is to encourage local governments to reframe how they look at urbanizing watersheds, and then connect the dots between drainage infrastructure and stream health. What happens on the land does matter to streams. Getting an unfunded liability under control is their incentive for moving from awareness to action.”
To Learn More:
Download a copy of the Synopsis of the Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation in Metro Vancouver from 1994 through 2024. released in November 2024. The Synopsis is structured as six sections.
DOWNLOAD A COPY: https://waterbucket.ca/gi/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/11/Metro-Van-Chronicle_Synopsis_DRAFT_Nov2024.pdf