1000 Rain Garden Challenge
What happens when we let Nature teach?
She shows us the BIG picture.
With the frequency of natural disasters, specifically atmospheric rivers and heat waves in British Columbia recently, you can’t help but notice the mismatch between natural and human built systems. Reduced space for Nature, too much concrete and not enough shade are causing major problems and costing big money. NatuR&D is engaging in a massive cross-sectoral collaboration called The Resilient Urban Systems & Habitat (RUSH) Initiative to meet these challenges.
In 2024, climate-related catastrophes resulted in a record-breaking $8 billion dollars in insurance claims in Canada. Experts advise investment into infrastructure that mitigates these risks and protects communities but with everyone, including the government, strapped for cash, how can we take control of the future now?
Our stormwater infrastructure needs to be able to absorb and direct larger volumes of water from extreme precipitation events that have the potential to flood urban environments. Having enough water is becoming a serious problem in extremely hot, dry summers, and that means increased drought!
Biomimicry, the practice of looking to Nature for design ideas, offers an abundant solution space at the systems level. So how would Nature restore the smooth functioning of the urban ecosystem?
Natural infrastructure in the form of wetlands and ponds provide models that can be mimicked at various scales. Rain gardens and bioswales are “green infrastructure strategies” that are relatively easy and inexpensive to implement now.
Rain gardens and bioswales are like mini wetlands. Often encircled by a curb, which dips down and cuts into the pavement near roads and parking lots, these gardens are a green oasis populated by native marsh plants. When rainwater falls and hits high traffic areas, it carries the pollution from road runoff with it. The rain gardens absorb and filter the runoff, recharging the underground water supply (the aquifer) and delivering cleaner water to the watershed habitat and all the biodiversity who live there.
Recognizing the benefits of rain gardens and realizing that governments did not have an accurate picture of local rain garden distribution, The RUSH Initiative launched the 1000 Rain Gardens Challenge, born from a Peninsula Streams & Shorelines, and Friends of Bowker Creek Society collaboration. In an effort to help regional government assess whether neighbourhoods have enough absorptive surface to handle an extreme precipitation event, RUSH and schools have started mapping using open source Greenmaps technology. The RUSH Initiative has been working with municipalities and high schools to find and plot rain gardens across the south island.
Victoria Drains, a local business with a technology to rehabilitate infrastructure without digging it up, has declared that they will throw pizza parties for classes that plot more than 25 rain gardens. Just a few weeks into the challenge, the Mayor of Colwood, Doug Kobayashi and Royal Bay Secondary’s Environmental Sciences Class celebrated the first milestone.
With connectivity at the heart of our project, anyone can participate by plotting rain gardens in the name of a young person, classroom or local school.
And we won’t stop there…have you ever noticed a yellow fish marking on a storm drain? That symbol serves as a reminder that our stormwater drains directly into our watersheds. Knowing where all the storm drains are as new developments emerge is crucial in keeping water away from homes. We will be working with elementary schools this spring amplifying a Department of Fisheries and Oceans program to bring this data set up to date as part of the big picture. With the University of Victoria’s Map Shop and community mapping teams, schools across Southern Vancouver Island are learning more and more about Nature-based solutions, about what green infrastructure is, and how important it is in regulating our ecosystems. Students are playing with our mapping toolkit and learning about ecosystem connectivity from the Earth herself, allowing Nature to be the ultimate teacher. And we couldn’t be more thrilled!
SOURCES:
Judd, A. (2025, January 15). Severe weather events in 2024 surpassed $8B in claims, a Canadian first. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/10955925/severe-weather-events-2024-claims-canada/
Forecast Center (2024, October 21). How impactful was B.C.’s latest Atmospheric River? details pour in. The Weather Network. https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/severe/how-impactful-was-bcs-latest-atmospheric-river-details-pour-in
