An Urban Blueprint for Water: Securing Our Shared Water Future in Saint John, New Brunswick

An Urban Blueprint for Water: Securing Our Shared Water Future in Saint John, New Brunswick is a project that will enable the City of Saint John to incorporate climate change adaptation for stormwater management and flooding into the City's three upcoming neighbourhood plans. It will contribute to a better understanding of the vulnerabilities in these neighbourhoods as well as solutions to increase resiliency to stormwater management and flooding in the City's lowest income areas and commercial core. The project will be carried out in a collaboration between ACAP Saint John, the City of Saint John, and all neighbourhood stakeholders including residents, decision makers, other organizations, and developers, ensuring that a well-rounded understanding of neighbourhood priorities are taken into account and that broad reaching educational opportunities are leveraged during the project. This feasibility study will identify and communicate the following for the three neighbourhoods: • Urban watershed mapping; • Where stormwater enters the municipal wastewater system and adjacent waterways during storm events;• Existing natural and traditional stormwater assets and how they perform as a whole;• The capacity of the existing system to withstand 1 in 100-year storm events;• Areas lacking natural stormwater assets; • Potential sources of runoff contamination and sedimentation; • Sea level rise vulnerabilities in coastal neighbourhoods; and• Projected changes in precipitation and maps of flooding from 1 in 100-year storm events.While evidence shows that global and regional precipitation patterns are changing and that extreme events will become more frequent with a changing climate, the impacts this will have on the ground in Saint John have yet to be analyzed. The City updated its Storm Drainage Design Criteria Manual in 2016 giving direction on stormwater management for subdivisions, new developments and future municipal projects. The design manual is based on the 1961-1990 historic records from Environment and Climate Change Canada but does not yet take into account changing precipitation patterns due to climate change. The Province of New Brunswick has recently released data on local climate change projections for Saint John that will help the City in including adaptation planning into its neighbourhoods plans and design guidelines moving forward.This study aligns with the City’s directions and policies as stated in its Municipal Plan (PlanSJ) of:• Protecting the City’s natural ecosystems on land and in water; • Continuing to separate stormwater and wastewater systems; • Preparing a Stormwater Management Master Plan - where possible, these should be prepared in conjunction with Neighbourhood Plans; • Protecting the natural stormwater capacity of flood plains;• Using low impact development techniques where possible;• Encouraging innovative stormwater management methods;• Designing stormwater management facilities as local amenities; and,• Increasing public awareness and engagement in stormwater management practices and site design.The study will contribute three shovel ready projects, one for each neighbourhood, that have been identified as significant for managing increased stormwater runoff through capturing and filtering stormwater before it enters the municipal system and the City’s waterbodies. Shovel ready projects will target vacant lands and brownfield sites in order to increase greenspaces and revitalize underused lots in disadvantaged areas. The study will also enable the project team to explore and identify small-scale, naturalized runoff interventions accessible to landowners and developers such as rain garden and bioswale designs. The results of the study will also inform stormwater and urban design guidelines that incorporate local climate change projections for Saint John.