Rainwater Management

“Our community wash-off models have for 40 years been structured based on land use: residential, commercial, and industrial. The deep weakness of such models is that the structure is not directly related to the BMP programs. Let’s consider structuring our models based on scape: roadscape, parkingscape, roofscape, and landscape,” writes Gary Minton.

In the January 2009 issue of Stormwater magazine, writer Christopher Estes presents monitoring data for three sites in the North Carolina Piedmont that demonstrate the success of rainwater/stormwater infiltation in clay soils.

“The goal of the Learning Lunch Seminar Series is to inform and educate local government practitioners,” stated Kim Stephens. “The series is the first step in building a regional team approach…..so that there will be a common understanding and consistent messaging regarding on-the-ground expectations for rainwater management and green infrastructure.”

Dave Briglio – author of Stormwater Magazine articles
In 2007, a 3-part series focused on causes, effects, and remedies leading to the establishment and refinement of administrative procedures, professional trust, proactive approaches, and the elimination of plan implementation obstacles.

The City of Courtenay was the host municipality for the 2008 Comox Valley Learning Lunch Seminar Series. At the third and final seminar in the Series, held in November 2008, Kim Stephens re-capped the first two seminars, reinforced the provincial context for the series, and reviewed the learning outcomes. ”A design with nature approach are re-use of resources are key to climate change adaptation,” he stated in conclusion.

The Inter-Governmental Partnership announced the conclusion of an intensive verification/validation process, and the uploading of an updated Water Balance Model web interface – thereby restoring full functionality of the model. “The longer than anticipated Beta-testing period has had a silver lining in that numerous additional refinements have been incorporated in the web interface,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's stormwater program — which oversees stormwater discharged by cities, industries, and construction activities — needs radical changes if it is to improve the quality of the nation’s waters, says a new report from the National Research Council. It recommends that permits be based on watershed boundaries, and the program focus on the impact of increased water volume rather than chemical pollutants.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency maintains a web page that lists links to published stories on green infrastructure success throughout the United States.

Beyond the Guidebook 2007 connects the dots between the water balance methodology and stream health protection. “Through implementation of ‘green infrastructure’ policies and practices, the desired outcome in going Beyond the Guidebook is to apply what we have learned at the site scale over the past five years…so that we can truly protect and/or restore stream health in urban watersheds”, stated Paul Ham.

In 2004 the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC) in Sonoma County established the WATER Institute (Watershed Advocacy, Training, Education & Research) to promote an understanding of the importance of healthy watersheds to healthy communities. OAEC’s WATER Institute builds upon their many years of regional watershed research, restoration, advocacy, community organizing, and activism.