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“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.”

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.”

“Implementation of ‘whole systems’ thinking would include incorporating the benefits provided by nature into the delivery of local government services,” stated Peter Law. “Community-based Environmental Stewardship has been an institution in BC for a generation. Today, community organizations partner with local governments to monitor and restore local watershed health. These groups provide thousands of volunteer hours to restore aquatic habitats,” stated Peter Law.

“Restoring the absorbency of the urban landscape would reduce demand for landscape irrigation water and sustain environmental flows during droughts. It would also reduce stream erosion in wet weather,” stated Kim Stephens. ”Too often people think of land and water as being independent – almost like silos. But what we do on the land, and whether we treat the land with respect, has direct implications and consequences for water use.”

“The presentation by Kim Stephens gave further insight into how thinking has evolved regarding stormwater management in our region and elsewhere. His discussion of Voodoo Hydrology reinforced the importance of questioning everything, a habit I try to encourage in my students,” stated Laith Furatian. The term was coined by Andy Reese, an American engineer and writer, in 2006 to describe the mis-application of science.

“Moving beyond traditional engineered infrastructure asset management to also account for nature’s services will help influence ‘standards of practice’ and represent a leading-edge evolution in how infrastructure is planned, financed, implemented and maintained in BC. The long-term success of the IREI program will be measurable when community development activities and alterations of the built environment result in cumulative benefits, not impacts,” wrote Wes Shoemaker.

“We each consider it a success when we can achieve more outputs with fewer inputs, and have committed to continue to adopt a sharing approach to their work,” states Nancy Gothard. “Each community has different goals and capacities and each jurisdiction’s educational materials reflect this, while also providing similar messaging and layout elements for consistent branding.”

“Storm Water Management innovation in BC is the result of not being overly regulated. Establish sound principles. Apply them. Adapt to the specific site conditions. Do not be too prescriptive, it may take away the opportunity for innovation,” states Hugh Fraser. “Creating a watershed health legacy will ultimately depend on how well we are able to achieve rain water management improvements on both public and private sides of a watershed.”

“Where a local government regulates land use, a watershed is an integral part of the drainage infrastructure assets of the local government. More specifically, the three pathways (surface, interflow, groundwater) by which rainfall reaches streams are infrastructure assets. They provide ‘water balance services’. This has implications for asset management,” stated Richard Boase.

“The asset management process is a continuum; and nature is an integral part of a community’s infrastructure system. The process starts with the engineered assets that local governments provide. Communities will progress along the continuum incrementally as their understanding grows. By also accounting for and integrating the services that nature provides, over time they can achieve the goal of Sustainable Service Delivery for watershed systems,” states Wally Wells.