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“The next step comprises the management of all water within the urban water cycle. A key component of this is rain and stormwater harvesting, which offers great growth opportunities,” Ian Neilson said. “Stormwater and rain harvesting on a large scale is an incredibly intricate and complicated process with many legal, practical, budgetary, infrastructure and other considerations. Much work is underway.” The City has a draft strategy for harvesting rain and stormwater, part of a move towards holistic water management.

“This is a story about what is possible in urban water sustainability. Blue City is an idea that is emerging and well within reach for most communities. It is not a utopian fantasy. The elements that make the City exemplary are occurring in real places across Canada and around the world. The City described herein combines these characteristics into a single, fictional location, and in so doing demonstrates an end state towards which real cities can aspire. It is what any place could look like if water really mattered,” stated Kirk Stinchcombe.

“We’ve been under a very dominant, big, blocking ridge of high pressure that hasn’t just lasted days at a time, but also weeks at time,” Lisa Erven said. “It’s been one of the driest Mays on record for many communities, but also one of the hottest Mays on record for communities right from Vancouver Island, to Cranbrook and right through the central Interior.” Abbotsford tied for hottest May ever with an average temperature of 15.5 for the month, the same as in 1993. It was Victoria’s second warmest and second driest May.

“The detail revealed by the Systems Framework underpins the Natural Capital approach which incorporates ecosystems into resilience evaluation,” stated Peter Coombes. “In fact, the Systems Framework was developed out of the systems thinking at the root of the Natural Capital concept. The power and accuracy of the systems analysis has been dramatically increased by our bottom-up methods, and also by our use of discoveries from molecular sciences (around DNA processes) and economic decision theory.”

“Today, more than ever, we must work with nature, instead of against it,” said Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO in the foreword of the report. “Demand for water is set to increase in all sectors. The challenge we must all face is meeting this demand in a way that does not exacerbate negative impacts on ecosystems.” Nature-based solutions (NBS) offer a vital means of moving beyond business-as-usual to address many of the world’s water challenges while simultaneously delivering additional benefits vital to all aspects of sustainable development.