Canadian Water Week: Innovative Stormwater Management in British Columbia

As Canadian Water Week winds down  we would like to share a series of videos on innovative stormwater management in British Columbia produced by the Master of Land and Water Systems (MLWS) program.  

The following introduction is by Dr. Hans Schreier. 

Conventional stormwater management is no longer sufficient to deal with increased climatic variability and urban land use intensification that is leading to increased flooding and streamwater contamination. Conveying stormwater runoff directly into urban stream does not deal with the urban non-point sources of pollution and is degrading the aquatic ecosystem. Management has to be adaptive to deal with the new climatic conditions and land use changes and the new paradigm is to infiltrate, temporarily detain and slowly release the rainfall through various filter systems that mimic natural processes. Since processes and contamination sources differ over spatial and temporal scales a three level approach is needed that focuses on different options at the property, the neighbourhood and the watershed scale. This set of four videos provides a wide range of innovative options that can be initiated at the three spatial scales and shows what innovators in the Vancouver area have accomplished in order to reduce the risk of flooding and improve the aquatic ecosystem in the urban environment.