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Look At Rainfall Differently

FLASHBACK TO THE 2000s: “The City of Coquitlam turned a crisis into a transformational outcome and emerged as a green infrastructure leader in the Metro Vancouver region,” stated Kim Stephens, Partnership for Water Sustainability


“In 2003, the City was clearly visionary when it first embraced and then formalized a watershed-based approach as a foundation piece in the Official Community Plan. By the latter part of the decade, however, Coquitlam was viewed by others in the region as the example of what not do. A noteworthy aspect of the Coquitlam story is how quickly municipal staff learned from experience, adapted their approach, and successfully instilled a new way of doing business. Coquitlam is the model for keeping things simple, practical, and implementable,’ stated Kim Stephens.

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LOOK AT RAINFALL DIFFERENTLY: “In addition to stormwater management, the ‘sponge city’ model brings other benefits, including increased biodiversity, reduced heat island effect, attractive public spaces and more exposure to nature,” wrote Morgan Lowrie of the Canadian Press (October 2023)


“From green roofs in Toronto to Vancouver’s rain city strategy, Canadian cities are looking to become ‘sponges’ in order to help mitigate some of the effects of extreme rainfall events. The goal is to reverse some of the harm done by decades of car-oriented urban development, which involved replacing natural spaces that soak up water with impermeable infrastructure such as roads and parking lots. Green infrastructure can be incorporated into a landscape in many ways. Across Canada, cities appear to be jumping on board,” wrote Morgan Lowrie.

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RESTORE THE BALANCE IN THE WATER BALANCE: “Sponge Cities”- A catchy way to describe the goal in restoring the capacity of the urban landscape to absorb water, release it naturally, and soften the impacts of floods and droughts!


“Extreme weather, a changing climate, and impervious streets and roads have combined to create an urban disaster. All of this has seen cities begin to re-imagine their relationship with water. Rather than just designing systems that allow the water to drain away slowly and stably, they want to harvest and reuse it. This approach to urban design – where water is held in place to be called-upon when needed – is known as the ‘sponge city’, and it is rapidly growing in popularity,” stated Laurie Winkless.

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INTEGRATING NATURE INTO INFRASTRUCTURE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “Every significant innovation results from a magical combination of timing, preparation and luck. So true for the creation of a new online course on Green Infrastructure,” stated Dr. Joanna Ashworth, co-developer of the self-directed online course on Green Infrastructure Policy, Design and Practice launched by Simon Fraser University in 2021


“Whether it’s the community coming together to build rain gardens or adopt catch basins, dedicated volunteer streamkeepers who put in countless hours restoring and protecting important salmon habitat, or government decision-makers and employees enacting policies, everyone has a role to play in advancing Green Infrastructure implementation. There’s more work to be done as we collectively travel along a path to find upstream, proactive solutions to climate change impacts,” stated Joanna Ashworth..

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USE PLAIN LANGUAGE: “Words like ‘stormwater’, ‘rainwater’ and ‘drainage’ can have such powerful unconscious effects on how you interpret the discussions and they can mean different things to different stakeholders in the system,” stated Charles Axelsson, PhD candidate, University of Venice (January 2021)


“In the sciences, one of the largest challenges to research is science communication. A lot of fantastic studies are misinterpreted outside of scientific circles because the language, style and meaning of science writing is very different to non-specialists. With climate change studies, this can lead to a serious disconnect between climate change policy and the supporting research. Good policy is reliant of strong communication of everyone’s interests,” stated Charles Axelsson.

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FLASHBACK TO 2010: “The East Clayton development in Surrey was the first development in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia that utilized Low Impact Development techniques and facilities,” explained Jim Dumont at the Rain to Resource Workshop hosted by the Okanagan Basin Water Board


“The need to embrace LID practices arose from the need to prevent further increases in damage to both the environment and the agricultural community resulting from the increases in runoff from urban areas. The Neighbourhood Concept Plan (NCP) established rainfall capture objectives for maintaining the predevelopment runoff rates and volumes. The first phase of development brought the need to create calculation methods to verify that the designs complied with the NCP requirements,” stated Jim Dumont.

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FLASHBACK TO 2007: “RAINwater management is about protecting streams, not how much volume can be infiltrated,” stated Corino Salomi, Area Manager, Department of Fisheries & Oceans, when the Beyond the Guidebook program was launched to initiate a course correction in how the DFO Urban Stormwater Guidelines were being implemented in British Columbia


“It helps to look back to understand how we got to here. In 2000, DFO released Urban Stormwater Guidelines and Best Management Practices for Protection of Fish and Fish Habitat. By 2007, however, we had concerns about how the document was being interpreted and applied. ‘Beyond the Guidebook 2007’ represented the initial course correction,” stated Corinio Salomi. The Partnership for Water Sustainability has since released two more in the Beyond the Guidebook Series – in 2010 and 2015.

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FACILITATING THE PARADIGM-SHIFT FROM STORMWATER TO RAINWATER: “Before the Water Balance Model for British Columbia was developed, the missing link urban hydrology was a tool that could easily quantify the benefits, at a neighbourhood or watershed scale, achieved by reducing rainwater runoff volume at the site level,” wrote Kim Stephens in an article published by Innovation Magazine (June 2004)


Rainwater management is at the heart of a contemporary approach to land development in balance with the natural environment. In 2004, Kim Stephens provided this perspective: “BC stormwater criteria and tools are receiving increasing recognition across North America because of their unique emphasis on solving both flooding and environmental problems at the source. This rethinking of traditional approaches to urban hydrology is helping to achieve higher levels of stream protection by integrating land use planning with volume-based strategies.”

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THE STORM OF THE CENTURY COULD SOON HAPPEN EVERY YEAR: “The timescale [for major storms] is changing dramatically, and may become irrelevant in categorizing storms,” says Mandy Ikert, Director, Water and Adaptation Initiative – C40


A UN report warns extreme weather events that historically happened about once in 100 years could hit coastal cities yearly by 2050. Cities need to prepare now. “This is a wake-up call that we still need to do more to mitigate as much [climate impact] as possible. We’re not going back to normal—whatever normal once was,” stated Mandy Ikert. She says reports like this one are important: They help rally support from larger nations and financial institutions for protecting all cities from the effects of climate change.

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WHOLE-SYSTEM, WATER BALANCE TRAINING FOR ENGINEERS: “The Town’s experience is that the weak link in drainage analyses is always the assumptions,” stated Shelley Ashfield, Municipal Engineer, when she explained why the Town of Comox took on responsibility for an educational process to bridge a gap in practitioner understanding


How water gets to a stream, and how long it takes, is not well understood among land and drainage practitioners. “A lack of explicit identification and justification of the assumptions and simplifications made in the analysis of stormwater impacts has resulted in stormwater systems that address hypothetical as opposed to actual site characteristics and development impacts,” stated Shelley Ashfield. “Learning from this experience, the Town now requires that assumptions be stated and explained. We are saying WHAT is your assumption, and WHY.”

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