Key areas

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  Preserving water as the city grows

  As Vancouver’s population increases, we’re developing balanced plans and services to manage and conserve drinking water, rainwater, waste water, and groundwater in development sites and at a neighbourhood scale. For example, the Renfrew Rupert Area Plan will address local housing, transportation, and community service needs while protecting Still Creek. The False Creek NEU reuses heat from sewage, that is typically wasted, to heat buildings in parts of Mount Pleasant and the False Creek area.  

  This approach helps preserve water and encourages re-use at a local scale, helping reduce climate change impacts such as drought and it also minimizes polluted overflows into our aquatic environment.

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  Understanding our utilities and natural systems

  We're developing new ways of gathering data on the water cycle within and around our city.

  Our goal is to build a deep understanding of the flow and quality of water in our underground pipe network, above and below ground, and into our streams, rivers and ocean. This data and analysis help plan for future infrastructure to serve our communities better, withstand shocks and stressors, and adapt to a changing climate.

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  Building green rainwater infrastructure

  Rain falling in cities picks up many pollutants from roofs and roads that contaminate our aquatic environment. Climate change has also caused extreme rain events to become more common, which could lead to major flooding and damage throughout the city.

  Nature-based solutions to rainwater management, such as green rainwater infrastructure, use plants and soil to capture and clean rainwater to reduce flooding and prevent harmful substances from entering our waterways. Through the RainCity strategy PDF file (21 MB) we are building on and increasing more then 300 green rainwater infrastructure assets across Vancouver.