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Provincial programs provide direction as to where the Province wants to go with Living Water Smart and the Green Communities Initiative. “While legislative reform is a foundation piece, collaboration takes place outside the legislative framework. At the end of the day, planners and engineers and other disciplines must come together to determine the issues and solutions. No statute will help them do that. Influencing behaviour and attitudes is at the heart of moving from awareness to action,” stated Lynn Kriwoken.

“The Water Balance Forum was the kick-off for an inter-regional education initiative to be implemented in four regions over several years. Sharing of experiences, collaboration, alignment and a consistent approach on Vancouver Island will allow everyone to go farther, more efficiently and effectively,” stated Kate Miller. “Our emphasis will be on “targets and criteria”, lessons learned, and practices necessary to protect stream health.”

“The twin pillars of the IREI are the Water Balance Methodology and Ecological Accounting Protocol,” stated Kim Stephens. “The Methodology links actions at the site scale with desired outcomes at a watershed scale. The new paradigm is that watersheds are infrastructure assets. Local governments would use the Ecological Accounting Protocol to develop a more complete financial picture. It is a method of ascertaining economic value of services drawn from natural assets.”

North Vancouver City is a case study for a UBC design course on integration of landscape architecture into urban rainwater management strategies. “The lecture by Kim Stephens was excellent and well-paced,” stated Daniel Roehr, Associate Professor. “He provided clarity regarding a course objective, which is to design at different scales, using the reverse design strategy, site and details first before urban and regional scale.”

“The emphasis in using the Ecological Accounting Protocol (EAP) would be on adaptive management design, rather than a prescriptive approach,” stated Kim Stephens. “The essence of EAP is that ‘Optimum Infrastructure Design = Watershed Health’. Optimum implies preserving hydrologic integrity plus achieving best opportunity-cost outcomes in the long-term. The watershed defines what goes into EAP.”

“Kim Stephens was able to communicate concepts in a way that made sense to the class. They understood him perfectly,” observed Todd Pugh, sessional instructor for Capilano’s Local Government Administration Certificate program. “It is such a mix of people – there were some who would have liked to hear more about the science behind what he presented, and for others it was more science than they’ve experienced since elementary school.”

The Municipal Engineering Division invited Kim Stephens to make a presentation on Sustainable Watershed Systems at the 2016 APEGBC Annual Conference. “We then invited Kim Stephens to write an article for Innovation magazine that would help spread word about his presentation, as well as provide a sneak peek for conference attendees,” states Monique Kieran. “The article serves as a proceedings article for the conference presentation.”

The new billing system also allows people to reduce their stormwater bills by making improvements to their property to better manage water, Fraser Work said. Financial rewards will be offered to property owners who add rain gardens, cisterns, green roofs or resurface driveways with a permeable surface that absorbs stormwater. “When you are looking at potentially replacing your driveway, when you are looking at doing some roof work … you can look at this rewards program as a source of cost mitigation.”

“Water-centric thinking, planning and doing have become more than a vision. They are a reality on Vancouver Island and elsewhere in BC. CAVI, the acronym for the Convening for Action on Vancouver Island initiative, was a driver in this accomplishment and demonstrated what can be done through partnerships and collaboration,” stated Derek Richmond.

“Once we went back to basics and developed the concept of a Rainfall Spectrum, this then led into the concept of Performance Targets for rainwater runoff capture. The reason runoff percentage is the performance target is that municipalities exert control over runoff volume through their land development and infrastructure policies, practices and actions,” explained Kim Stephens.