Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC releases “Primer on Rainwater Management in an Urban Watershed Context”

Integrating the Site with the Watershed and the Stream 

ln 2002, the Province released Stormwater Planning: A Guidebookfor British Columbia. Looking at rainfall differently led to a new approach to rainwater management. The Guidebook provided a science-based framework to guide development of the 'stormwater' component of Liquid Waste Management Plans.

“When the Province released the Guidebook in 2002, we thought we would be doing well if we could just hold the line and protect what we had. We hoped we might have enough successes after 20 years that maybe, just maybe, we would then improve conditions in the decades that followed,” states Peter Law, Chair of the Guidebook Steering Committee (2000-2002). Formerly with the Ministry of Environment, Peter Law is a founding Director of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia.

“Well, it is 2011 and we have exceeded our own expectations. What was a dream in 2002 may now in fact be achievable. We have the tools and experience to ‘design with nature’ in order to soften the ‘water footprint’ of development. Watershed restoration is within our grasp.”

“Building on the Guidebook foundation, the Partnership has released the Primer on Rainwater Management in an Urban Watershed Context. The purpose of the Primer is to provide engineers and non-engineers with a common understanding of how a science-based approach to rainwater management has evolved since the mid-1990s.”

"The goal of protecting stream health has become a driver for action in BC. By 2002, as an implementation action resulting from enactment of the Fish Protection Act (1997), the Province had developed the Guidebook. It was a joint effort of two Ministries – Environment and Municipal Affairs. The process produced a science-based framework to guide development of the stormwater component of Liquid Waste Management Plans," continues Kim Stephens, Partnership Executive Director.

"We unveiled the Primer  when the Partnership and City of Surrey co-hosted the pilot Course on the ISMP Course Correction on November 9-10, 2011 in the Metro Vancouver region," adds Ted van der Gulik (BC Ministry of Agriculture), also a founding Director of the Partnership for Water Sustainability. "The course provided the opportunity to teach water resource practitioners about the fundamentals of rainwater management. Otherwise this understanding could potentially be lost."

TO LEARN MORE: To download a copy of the Primer, click here. To read the complete story posted on the Water Bucket website, click on Primer on Rainwater Management in an Urban Watershed Context.

E-Blast #2011-63

November 29, 2011