Rainwater Management

“Circa 2000-2001, the mantra in BC was “overcoming fear and doubt” in order to move ahead with projects such as the East Clayton Sustainable Community in Surrey, and UniverCity at Simon Fraser University on Burnaby Mountain. Translating high expectations into practical design guidelines meant revisiting accepted drainage engineering practice,” stated Kim Stephens.

The city of Annapolis, a charitable foundation and a landscape architect are working together on building an underground drainage system that stops dirty rainwater from flowing into Spa Creek by filtering it and channeling the results to irrigate the tree and shrubs on the tiny site.

“During the period 2000-2001, the mantra in British Columbia was ‘overcoming fear and doubt’ in order to move ahead with projects such as the East Clayton Sustainable Community in the City of Surrey, and UniverCity at Simon Fraser University on Burnaby Mountain in the City of Burnaby. In 2000, translating high expectations into practical design guidelines meant revisiting accepted drainage engineering practice,” stated Kim Stephens.

“While its primary purpose is to provide province-wide guidelines, Develop with Care also provides information on ways that environmental protection and stewardship can benefit the community, the property owner and the developer, as well as the natural environment,” stated Marlene Caskey.

The University of British Columbia is leading a national initiative that is intended to create a network of experts that collaborate and share their experiences. Richard Boase of the District of North Vancouver made a defining presentation titled 'New Directions in Urban Watershed Health'. “A key message is that we were doing better 50 years ago when we did not even think about the need for rainwater capture,” he observed.

“We are using the slogan The New Business As Usual to convey the message that, for change to really occur, practices that until now have been viewed as the exception must become the norm moving forward. We have to build regulatory models and develop models of practice and expertise,” stated Dale Wall, Deputy Minister.

The Guidebook’s premise that land development and watershed protection can be compatible represented a radical shift in thinking in 2002. “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”, states Paul Ham,

A team led by Dr. Hans Schreier of the University of British Columbia (UBC) kicked off a national ‘knowledge translation strategy’ for rainwater management when it convened a pre-conference workshop, conference and field tour in June 2007 in Vancouver. From a British Columbia perspective, the event design had a distinct Water Balance Model flavour.

Beyond the Guidebook – cover (360 pixels)
IGP & GIP, June 2007
“Beyond the Guidebook” is an initiative that builds on the foundation provided by “Stormwater Planning: A Guidebook for British Columbia”. This inter-governmental initiative advances a runoff-based approach and tool – the ‘Water Balance Model powered by QUALHYMO' – to help local governments achieve desired urban stream health and environmental protection outcomes at a watershed scale.

“Stormwater Planning: A Guidebook for British Columbia, was a pioneer application in North America of ‘adaptive management’ in a rainwater management setting. In the Guidebook, adaptive management means: We change direction when the science leads us to a better way,” stated Kim Stephens. “The goal of adaptive management is to learn from experience and constantly improve land development and rainwater management practices over time.”