SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT: What Do You Wonder About “Sustainable Rainwater Management in British Columbia”?
Note to Reader:
A decade ago, looking at rainfall differently led the Province of British Columbia to initiate a performance target approach to capturing rain where it falls, and initiate changes in the ways rainwater runoff is returned to streams. In the Metro Vancouver region, municipalities are required to implement watershed-based plans that inform community planning and protect stream health.
Mimic the Water Balance to reduce risk (both financial and environmental), improve watershed health, and comply with regulatory requirements and/or objectives.
(Image Credit: Courtesy of the Integration and Application Network, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (ian.umces.edu/symbols/)
Partnership for Water Sustainability collaborates with APEGBC to offer a seminar that integrates regulatory, historical, local government, science and technology perspectives
Do you wonder what “sustainable rainwater management in a watershed context” looks like on the ground? Then register for the seminar on Sustainable Rainwater Management: Mimic the Water Balance to Protect Watershed and Stream Health. Engineering infrastructure, community planning and environmental professionals can all learn from the proven experience of two municipalities that are leading change in the Metro Vancouver region, namely: District of North Vancouver and City of Coquitlam.
“The City of Coquitlamhas Integrated Watershed Management Plans completed or underway for all of its watersheds,” states Melony Burton, the City’s Watershed & Drainage Coordinator. She is also Alternate Chair of the region’s Stormwater Interagency Liaison Group. Melony is a member of the Partnership’s 4-person teaching team that includes Richard Boase (District of North Vancouver), Jim Dumont (Water Balance Model Engineering Applications Authority) andKim Stephens.
“Coquitlam’s Official Community Plan requires that a Watershed Plan be completed before a Neighbourhood Plan can be developed. This important direction guides appropriate land use in response to a watershed’s unique conditions and needs. Using this strategy has brought our Planning, Environmental, Engineering, and Parks departments to the table. Both the process and the plan are integrated to achieve practical, cost-effective objectives which balance land use, drainage and the environment.”
“The seminar is an opportunity to share lessons learned by the City of Coquitlam over the past decade. Changing the way we do things means taking on new challenges and not always getting it right the first time. Securing political support for a watershed-based approach to community planning paved the way for development and implementation of rainwater management applications that mimic the Water Balance. Over time, our Integrated Watershed Management Plans will be guided by a Monitoring and Adaptive Management Framework which will allow us to evaluate which strategies are yielding the most positive results and which need modification.”
TO LEARN MORE:
For information about the seminar curriculum, go to the seminar homepage on waterbucket.ca by clicking on Sustainable Rainwater Management: Mimic the Water Balance to Protect Watershed and Stream Health!
For cost and registration information, go to the APEGBC website by clicking here.