New, greener, strategy urged for stormwater management
Posted Sep 12, 2016 2:11 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Calgary has seen its fair share of flash floods this summer.
The city says there are $240 million worth of planned upgrades or upgrades that are currently underway. As costs continue to soar, a report from company Sustainable Prosperity on stormwater management says a new approach is needed.
In “New Solutions for Sustainable Stormwater Management in Canada” author Sara Jane O’Neil says the problems stem from hard surfaces, which run into our traditional systems of pipes and culverts.
“[It] takes it into the cities and puts it into the recieving water if there is any treatment or filtration,” she says.
O’Neil believes the solution is fairly simple.
“Actually using green infrastructure in combination with your grey infrastructure system. Green infrastructure, I’m talking about things like rain gardens or bio-soil, so vegetated areas along streets,” she says.
Everything is context specific, but her research says in general, green infrastructure is more cost effective in the long run.
