Exploring the Potential of Green Infrastructure in a Changing Climate: A Roundtable

Green infrastructure is a set of technologies and techniques. Their collective purpose is to achieve current infrastructure functions in a way which emulates natural systems. Green infrastructure is used to treat stormwater, sequester carbon, improve air quality, reduce pollution, and add aesthetic value to public and private spaces. Although these techniques and technologies are proven to reduce costs associated with standard ‘grey’ infrastructure and offer an array of ecosystem services, they have been slow to gain traction and become standard best practices within urban environments. Why do we see these stalls and what can we do to fast-track the development and implementation of these practices?

Vancouver’s North Shore offers a living laboratory of green infrastructure projects with lessons from ecological restoration, eco-system planning, landscape architecture, local government infrastructure engineering and climate change adaptation. How might the integration of these multiple perspectives help better the future of our communities?  

The roundtable format will first call upon an array of experts to speak to each of these themes and the following questions:

• How do complimentary approaches of green infrastructure implementation and ecological restoration remediate current and future environmental impacts? – Ken Ashley, PhD, Director of the Rivers Institute at British Columbia Institute of Technology
  
• How can urban and ecosystem planning and development work to further the use of green infrastructure in urban settings? – Patrick Lilley, MSc, RPBio., Stormwater, Kerr Wood Leidal
  
• What lessons can be learned from the specific experiences of urban green infrastructure site design and project installation? Case studies may include MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop), VanDusen Botanical Gardens Visitors Centre and the Revelstoke Riparian Restoration Project – Bryce Gauthier, Landscape Architect, BCSLA, CSLA, LEED AP, Enns|Gauthier Landscape Architects
  
• How has the City of North Vancouver succeeded in implementing green infrastructure within their OCP? – Dave Matsubara, MEng, PEng., Design Engineer – Infrastructure, Engineering, Parks and Environment, City of North Vancouver
  
• How does green infrastructure produce co-benefits of health and low carbon resiliency? – Deborah Harford, Executive Director of ACT, (Adaptation to Climate Change Team), Simon Fraser University

Participants will be invited to discuss:

• What are the challenges and opportunities for green infrastructure in your sector and/or jurisdiction?
• What needs to happen to bring bio-diversity and ecosystem based planning practices to the professions including urban developers, planners, engineers and architects, among others?