3rd Announcement: Peer-Based Learning Will Help Local Governments Implement ‘Watershed Blueprints’ in BC

Integrated Rainwater Management: Municipalities Can Achieve More With Less

An ISMP, or Integrated Stormwater Management Plan, is a potentially powerful tool. It can influence other municipal processes for the better. It can generate the blueprint for truly integrated and coordinated action at a watershed scale. The City of Surrey is the host for the first 2-day course titled ISMP Course Correction: Achieve More with Less. An inter-governmental team is providing peer-based learning.

“At the heart of the ‘Course on the Course Correction’ is the paradigm-shift to landscape-based from model-centric. In local government, we have seen what works and what hasn’t. The course will showcase tools and case study examples that will help local governments produce a Watershed Blueprint that is landscape-based AND action-oriented,” states Jody Watson, Chair of the Bowker Creek Initiative in the Capital Region. She is a member of the ISMP Course Correction Team.

“The output from a model-centric process is a report that mainly deals with hydrotechnical matters. Usually these go on a shelf because local governments cannot afford to implement them. In contrast, the outcome of a landscape-based and action-oriented process is a truly integrated plan to restore watershed function over time. Agree on the vision. Set the targets. Provide planners with the detail necessary to guide site level decisions as opportunities arise. Then implement.”

ISMP COURSE CORRECTION: During the period November-December 2010, the Water Sustainability Action Plan for British Columbia released a 5-part series about considerations driving a course correction in the way ISMPs are undertaken. Release of the Summary Report for ISMP Course Correction Series followed in February 2011.

“The purpose of the Summary Report is to guide those about to embark upon an ISMP process. In April 2011, the Water Balance Model Partners Forum provided a platform for launching an educational program that will support implementation of the ISMP Course Correction in Metro Vancouver. This will help municipalities fulfil their regulatory commitments under the region’s Integrated Liquid Waste and Resource Management Plan,” states Ted van der Gulik, Chair of the Water Balance Model Partnership.

"Each document in the ISMP Course Correction Series corresponds to an action. Taken together, the five actions comprise a recommended framework for a watershed-based planning process."

TO REGISTER: Click on http://www.civicinfo.bc.ca/event/ISMPCourseCorrection.asp

TO LEARN MORE: To access the ISMP Course Correction 'homepage' on the Water Bucket website and learn more about the program design, click here.  

News Release #2011-44

October 4, 2011