On March 8, 2017, I braved the rain to attend a City of Vancouver open house at Volunteer Park that sought public input on plans to restore historic Tatlow Creek. I’m particularly excited about this project given my awareness of the many positive impacts of creek daylighting.

As I’ve described in a previous VPSN blog post, daylighting is a strategy that restores creeks and streams to a more natural state. As its name suggests, the practice involves uncovering buried, culverted creeks and bringing them back to the surface. While accomplishing this goal in a built-up area can present difficulties such as up-front costs and working around existing structures and property ownership, the long-term benefits include:

• storage and absorption of stormwater runoff over vegetated and riparian surfaces to improve water quality and prevent stormwater surges;
• cooling the air to reduce the heat island effect;
• providing public places of respite, recreation and access to nature;
• improved aesthetics and neighbourhood beautification;
• increased wildlife habitat and biodiversity;
• opportunities for education about local history and ecology; and
• opportunities for stewardship, a sense of pride, community spirit and connection.

With such a range of benefits, several cities around the world have adopted the practice of daylighting. Seoul’s Cheong Gye Cheon Project is a stand-out example. Initiated in 2003 and lauded as a success, this project involved removing a downtown freeway to restore the creek beneath. The most noteworthy benefits have been the increased natural habitats for various fish, bird and insect species and a significant cooling effect, with temperatures along the stream as much as 5.9° C lower than in nearby areas.

Several locations in Vancouver have also seen successful creek restoration, including Spanish Banks, Musqueam, Hastings and Still Creek, with salmon returning to spawn in Spanish Banks, Musqueam and Still.

Tatlow Creek, past to present

Formerly known as First Creek, Tatlow Creek was once fed by the area’s groundwater and flowed through both Tatlow Park and Volunteer Park before entering English Bay. As explained by the City’s presentation at the open house, urban development caused the original Tatlow Creek to be diverted and buried. The natural watershed was replaced by underground pipes, resulting in a deeper water table and altered hydrological processes. The existing stream currently begins in Tatlow Park, enters a culvert under Point Grey Road and discharges into English Bay through underground pipes.

Tatlow Park today

The project aims to uncover and restore further the stream that once flowed through what is now Volunteer Park. Fed by stormwater runoff, the restored stream will be filtered naturally through a series of pools alongside the stream before entering English Bay. This creek daylighting project also includes restoring the shoreline at the foot of Volunteer Park, currently overrun with invasive species, to a more natural state. Improved waterfront access for pedestrians and native plantings alongside the stream will create a riparian habitat for birds and pollinator species. 

Seeing benefits

The project aligns with the Vancouver Park Board’s Biodiversity Strategy as well as the Access to Nature goal that the City of Vancouver has articulated as a component of its Greenest City Action Plan. It has also been identified as a “potential new water focus project” as part of the City’s Integrated Rainwater Management Plan. According to the City, the project will:

• create an ecologically diverse stream corridor in Tatlow and Volunteer parks;
• improve access to the shoreline through new paths;
• restore and enhance riparian and shoreline habitat for birds and other wildlife; and
• improve rainwater management.

Have your say

Design concept A: Nature park. Image: City of Vancouver

During the open house, two design concepts were presented. One (“Nature park,” above) had the overarching goal of maximizing habitat creation and biodiversity. The other (“Gathering and play space,” below) focused on increased amenities for humans such as a larger number of pathways and play areas, formal stream crossings and picnic tables. The design concepts can be viewed in comprehensive form on the City’s website.

Design concept B: Gathering and play space. Image: City of Vancouver

The City is in the late phases of concept development and will use the feedback obtained from the public to create a final concept for board approval this summer. Detailed designs will be carried out through fall and winter 2017, with construction beginning in summer 2018. The project is slated for completion in summer 2019.

Want to provide feedback to the City on this project? The preliminary design concepts and a questionnaire are currently online and available until April 3, 2017.

Unfortunately, it seems as though it’s only getting rainier: the overall annual number of high intensity rainfall days have increased here since the mid 1970s, likely an effect of urbanization and global climatic change. Climate change analysis predicts this trend, in tandem with rising sea levels, will continue into the future, so don’t put away those umbrellas anytime soon.

Increasing rainfall may present a problem for the water management of the city. In an urban environment where a lot of terrain is paved and impermeable, there is a limited number of places wherewater can infiltrate the ground. In turn, when sewers and storm drains can’t manage the amount of water entering them, they back up and urban flooding occurs. You can see examples of this every time we have heavy rain, and because of rising precipitation levels and intensities, this is becoming a more common occurrence. There are, however, cities with examples of compelling water systems as a means to remedy this for Vancouver to take inspiration from.

The climate in North-West Europe is also changing: which means more heavy and frequent rainfall, similarly to here in Vancouver. The Netherlands, typically low lying (most of the country is below sea level), is known for its many water-related challenges and inventive solutions for them.

Today, the increase in rainfall means many Dutch cities require water storage to ensure their sewer systems aren’t overloaded. One solution for this the sort of “Water Squares” created by Dutch design firm De Urbanisten. The following images are taken from their excellent website.

De Urbanisten’s squares are an inspiring case study of how to provide water storage within the city, to stop urban flooding and take pressure off the sewer system, all while improving urban public space. The squares were originally developed as a conceptual study to examine Rotterdam’s relationship with water, but one square – Benthemplein – has now been built, several designed, and another currently under development.

These gathering spaces are designed to be a useable space both when wet and dry: light rain will only fill parts of the square, but heavier rainfalls will fill up larger storage basins. In the case of Benthemplein, the space functions (when it’s not raining) as an urban space for people to exercise, play and linger. It contains three concrete basins of varying depths which are used as a skate park, a basketball court, and theatre seating in dry weather. During heavy rainfalls the basins fill with water through steel gutters and small waterfalls.

Water is held within the square until the rain has subsided. When the city’s canals have the capacity to take that water again, water from the square will discharge into the nearest waterway and the square makes room for its users once again.

Water squares may not be the only solution to urban flooding, but they certainly provide an inspiring example of coupling infrastructure with public space. They show us that necessary groundwork can double as a design element and become a part of the urban fabric.

You can see more about how the Benthemplein Water Square works here.

– By Nuala O’Donnell. All photos courtesy of De Urbanisten.

What about Vancouver? Should we be looking at a “water square”, or integrating this sort of infrastructure into our public spaces? Got ideas of your own? The VPSN is hosting Make it Rain: A Design Workshop for Rainy Public Spaces this coming Sunday, April 17. The event takes place at the Museum of Vancouver. You should attend! For more information, check out this article.

For those with an interest in municipal infrastructure and how it gets used, it appears that we have, collectively, been caught with our pants down. One of our sources at Metro Vancouver ‘leaked’ us this revealing image.

It’s a graph produced by Metro’s Water Treatment and Systems Control Division, and it details water usage patterns on the closing day of the Olympics, last Sunday (February 28).

Usually, when we think of sports and infrastructure, we think of stadiums. This graph, however, does a nice job of illustrating the relationship between a couple of key events (the Gold medal hockey game and the closing ceremonies) and another type of infrastructure — the municipal water system.

On the left, a first series of spikes demarcates the golden truth of the matter. If the game itself had some moments of urgency and tension, these peaks in water usage during the intermissions show that at least part of this tension was mitigated by a bit of inter-period relief. The end of each period saw sharp increases in water usage as people raced to the bathroom and flushed… with water usage at its highest level about 5 minutes after Sydney Crosby’s game winning overtime goal.

Then, later in the day (seen on the right side of the graph), another series of spikes in water usage appears as people flushed away during the advertising breaks in the Closing Ceremonies.

File this one under citizens initiatives. Call it ‘going for the bowl.’

Thus ends the punnery.