Climate change adaptations for water management (ACCGE in the French acronym)
A social innovation approach to experimenting with green infrastructure in urban, agricultural and mountainous areas of Brome-Missisquoi.
Background
In the face of climate change and its impact on water budgets, MRC Brome-Missisquoi has already implemented a number of changes to better manage the quality and quantity of rainwater throughout the region.
As the community is already mobilized and taking action, the MRC has set up several projects that experiment with a social innovation approach and measure the effectiveness of different types of green infrastructure in three different settings—urban, mountainous and agricultural.
These projects are made possible with the support of the Climate Municipalities Program—Phase 2 (CM-2) run by the Ministère de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs. None of this would have been possible without the support of our incredible collaborators and facilitators every step of the way, especially the finances and resources shared by the municipalities involved in these projects and the Organisme de bassin versant de la baie Missisquoi.
Why establish rainwater management infrastructure in three different settings?
- Reduce the length and frequency of overflow episodes in the town of Bedford by implementing a program to disconnect gutters and introducing green infrastructure on streets in urban areas on a combined system
- Reduce sediment flowing into Cowansville’s drinking water source due to water erosion of roads in a mountainous watershed
- Reconfigure an agricultural watercourse in order to improve its flood storage capacity, its geomorphic stability, the quality of its wildlife habitats and water, while ensuring adequate drainage for farmlands
- Assess the effectiveness of different measures
- Launch an educational campaign and encourage local residents to get involved
- Set up workshops and training sessions for local residents and professionals
- Create technical sheets and indicators and contribute to ROBVQ’s Programme d’excellence
- Share the results
Projects in agricultural areas
While past development and maintenance of agricultural watercourses have helped the region’s farming industry develop into what it is today, agricultural areas have a faster water discharge rate, which increases flood risks and sediment and nutrient transport.
These straight watercourses have low geomorphic stability, requiring large investments every year to maintain them and remove sediment build-up.
In addition, water and wildlife habitats are generally poorer quality. However, agricultural areas have incredible potential for flood water storage. Current scientific knowledge can be used to reconfigure agricultural watercourses in order to increase their flood storage capacity, improve aquatic habitats and water quality and stabilize them without impairing the required drainage or losing much farmable land.
That’s why, following a maintenance request for an agricultural watercourse in disrepair, the watercourse was upgraded with environmental improvements—creating a two-stage channel, planting vegetation along the banks, expanding the riparian buffer. These changes will improve its water storage capacity during floods and improve both the water and ecosystem as a whole.
At the same time, an agronomic support initiative has already been implemented in the region in order to encourage and help producers to adopt crop practices that promote soil conservation and to make hydro‑agricultural improvements at the source.
Projects in urban areas
MRC Brome-Missisquoi chose to work with the municipality of Bedford as an experimental area for urban projects.
The goal is to assess the effectiveness of street-level rainwater management at the source—for example, removing impermeable surfaces, creating rain gardens, installing rain barrels and installing dry wells. There is also a program to disconnect gutters.
Check out our factsheets to learn how you too can set up green water management infrastructure on your property (scroll down to the Useful links and documents section below).
Projects in mountainous areas
Water erosion issues are even worse in mountainous areas, where sediment runoff (and phosphorus in particular) is one of the primary sources of lake contamination.
Restoration efforts for our lakes, which are plagued with issues like cyanobacteria blooms and silt build-up, are primarily focused on controlling the suspended solids brought in by watershed tributaries.
As climate change progresses, rainfall becomes more intense and erosive, requiring structural action to be taken in the watershed in order to control the causes of erosion at the source.
That’s why the following initiatives have been implemented:
- Support for property owners who are doing work that disturbs the soil
- Training for public works
- Erosion control structures in right of ways designed for a mountainous watershed to prevent silt from entering Lac Davignon, Cowansville’s source for drinking water.