Monday, February 7, 2011

Leading Change in the USA: Rainwater-in-Context Initiative




 Mirrors 'Design with Nature' Objectives of BC's Water Sustainability Action Plan

“A key goal of the Rainwater-in-Context Initiative is to help get the United States on the correct path for sustainable rainwater/stormwater management practices,” states Colorado-based Paul Crabtree, a driving force behind the Initiative.

“Rainwater-in-Context unites New Urbanism, rainwater/stormwater and watershed management, Smart Growth, water reuse, low impact, light imprint, and other sustainable practices toward a holistic approach to rainwater that utilizes the rural-to-urban transect and Charter for the New Urbanism.”

“In placing the emphasis on the watershed and the stream, the Rainwater-in-Context Initiative mirrors the ‘design with nature’ approach that we are advancing in British Columbia. By designing with nature, as it were, communities lessen and sometimes avoid the expense of engineering and building various kinds of infrastructure,” observes Tim Pringle, President of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia.

To learn more, click on Cross-Border Alignment: Connecting the Dots Between Land Use Planning, Development, Watershed Health AND Infrastructure Management. This article consolidates links to a number of articles recently posted on the Water Bucket.

News Release #2011-05
February 8, 2011

2 comments:

  1. Now this is exciting. It gives the term holistic a whole new twist.

    Understanding formative systems, working within the context of watersheds and then interfacing this with human works - brilliant!

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  2. Very interesting indeed.

    I can see the development community liking this approach, which looks better than the 'one size fits all'approach. Worthy of further discussion within the Metro Vancouver 'stormwater'group whose name I can't recall at the moment, since they set the stage for watershed plans in the Lower Mainland.

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