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“Over the next two years, the Inter-Regional Education Program (IREI) program would progressively inform and educate an expanding network of practitioners on how to integrate watersheds systems thinking and climate change adaptation into asset management to achieve hydrologic integrity and hence avoid expensive fixes. This would result in a common understanding,” wrote Kate Miller.

“In 1996, Richard Horner and Chris May published a seminal paper that synthesized a decade of Puget Sound research to identify and rank the four factors that degrade urban streams and negatively influence aquatic productivity and fish survival. This science-based ranking provides a framework for Integrated Watershed Management,” reports Bill Derry. In the 1980s, he was one of the first stormwater utility managers in Washington State.

The ‘Beyond the Guidebook Series’ documents the progress of local government champions who are leading implementation of practices that would restore hydrologic integrity after land is urbanized. “Over the next two years, we will progressively inform and educate an expanding network of practitioners on how to integrate watershed systems thinking and climate change adaptation into asset management,” stated Kim Stephens.

The Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative (IREI) provides local governments on the east coast of Vancouver Island and in Metro Vancouver with a mechanism to share outcomes and cross-pollinate experience. “Sharing of knowledge and experience through ‘organic collaboration’ is vital because peer-to-peer learning is what practitioners respect most,” observes Thomas White.

The program provides local governments with a mechanism to share outcomes and cross-pollinate experience with each other. “This partnership arrangement of sharing information related to rainwater management and watershed health provides the collaboration needed to further the work and education across multiple sectors leading to positive and continuous improvement,” stated Simon So.

“The unfunded ‘infrastructure liability’ is a driver for local governments to consider longevity, focus on what happens after developers hand-off municipal infrastructure, get it right at the front-end, and prepare for the future. Climate change is part of the liability equation – adaptation has level-of-service implications for infrastructure,” stated Derek Richmond, CAVI Chair.

“Accepted ‘standards of practice’ – especially those for engineering, planning and finance – influence the form and function of the Built Environment. Implementing green infrastructure, turning the clock back, shifting the ecological baseline, and creating a watershed legacy will ultimately depend on the nature of changes in standards of practice,” states Kim Stephens.

“Every generation will use the images that they got at the beginning of their conscious lives as a standard and will extrapolate forward. And the difference then, they perceive as a loss. But they don’t perceive what happened before as a loss. You can have a succession of changes. At the end you want to sustain miserable leftovers. And the question is, why do people accept this?,” stated Daniel Pauly.

The Inter-Regional Education Initiative fills a gap. “While Metro Vancouver’s Stormwater Interagency Liaison Group (SILG) provides a forum for Metro Vancouver members and senior government regulators to share information on rainwater and stormwater management issues, there is no formal mechanism to enable inter-regional collaboration,” stated Robert Hicks.

Glen Brown explained what his Ministry means when it urges local governments to view watersheds through a Sustainable Service Delivery lens. “This builds on the principles of Asset Management. It is going to be a component, and a requirement, under the next Gas Tax Grant Program. This is where we will find traction in moving Sustainable Service Delivery forward,” he said.