WC132 SeptOct 2023 - Magazine - Page 30
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3030 WATER
WATER
C AN
C AN
ADA
ADA
• SEP
• SEP
TEMBER/OCTOBER
TEMBER/OC TOBER
2023
2023
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
Stephen Braun
are just its side businesses. How can stormwater compete?
Someone once told me stormwater is just something you deal
with, like when you step on some gum on the road. Oh, stormwater… yep, got to get it off my shoe.
Kidding aside, respect for stormwater, and maybe even a
sort of thankfulness, is becoming a thing. The right direction
is being taken. We are moving through new and exciting times
of things like stormwater supplying water to street trees being
craftily embedded into our downtowns. All manners of green
infrastructure design and implementation keep improving,
with all of it fueled long-term by stormwater runoff. Huge
co-benefits are provided to the local ecology, ambient urban
temperatures are being reduced, and the beauty of neighbourhoods is being enhanced. And much more good stuff too, all in
the course of getting the job done. Protecting and enhancing.
Perhaps even restoring and being regenerative.
Great things are happening with stormwater, with a lot
of these resulting from our increased understanding of how
stormwater acts, how it arrives, and what condition it is in.
Technology advances allow us to model with software as we
have never been able to before. Our flood identification and
water quality predictions have been greatly enhanced by advancements in computer simulations and by the hard work of
research done in this space.
We still struggle to communicate what exactly stormwater
encompasses, though. How much of our flooding is a result of
stormwater runoff inputs from urban areas? It depends. That’s
the thing with stormwater, it is almost always an “it depends”
situation.
For instance, some rivers and their flood characteristics are
unaffected by urban stormwater runoff. Other urban creeks
are pretty much only stormwater (and in the winter can run as
salty as a sea). Every situation is so different with stormwater,
the tools we need just to describe its movement are many. Even
the language–riverine flooding is held to be different from
urban flooding, yet there may be little difference in stormwater
runoff content. In Ontario especially, the river is the domain
of a different regulator (a conservation authority that works on
a watershed basis). The municipality that owns the streets is in
charge of the urban drainage fabric. The distinction is important rules-wise, financially and in terms of the need for cooperation to keep the public safe.
