Vancouver’s St. George Rainway demonstrates how bioswales manage stormwater, support biodiversity, and reconnect ecological corridors, highlighting the potential of nature-based infrastructure in creating a climate-resilience future and reaching our global climate commitments. 

A $6.2 million natural infrastructure streetscape project in Vancouver is drawing attention to the role of bioswales and green infrastructure in sustainable urban development. According to a recent CBC News article (2025), Vancouver’s St. George Rainway project, which initially raised concerns from residents, particularly over its costs during a national housing crisis, represents a strategic move to support higher-density housing and manage the growing strain on aging sewer infrastructure.

At its core, the project is a bioswale – a landscaped decompression designed to capture, filter, and store stormwater runoff. This nature-based solution, which honors one of the city’s historic streams, is capable of diverting and cleaning approximately 17,000 cubic metres of rainwater annually, reducing the risk of sewer overflows and urban flooding. Although the bioswale required an initial investment of $1.6 million, it is estimated to have saved the city $16 million by eliminating the need for sewer infrastructure upgrades in a historically flood-prone neighbourhood.

Bioswales Benefit for Biodiversity

Bioswales not only reduce pressure on municipal sewer systems by slowing, capturing and filtering stormwater runoff, but they also offer a wide range of ecological benefits (2023): they naturally filter pollutants, support native vegetation and urban wildlife, boost biodiversity, and help mitigate the urban heat island effect – and at the very least, they make our city streetscapes more beautiful. Vancouver’s St. George Rainway is a wonderful example of this, showcasing a vibrant array of native flowers, shrubs, grasses, and trees, contributing to groundwater recharge, and providing habitat for pollinators, birds, plants, and insects.

Located adjacent to a school, the project also fosters biodiversity education through community engagement. During a weekday visit, children of all ages were seen interacting with landscape features such as the many boulders, bridges, and habitat logs. (One child even asked their parent whether a plant was native!). The Rainway demonstrates how science-backed, nature-based solutions can address pressing environmental challenges and be used to promote environmental stewardship.

These nature-based solutions are increasingly essential in cities like Vancouver, that face climate-related extreme weather events. Many other Canadian cities are also spearheading similar large-scale green infrastructure and climate resilient initiatives, such as Montreal’s Saint-Laurent Biodiversity Corridor and Toronto’s Don Mouth Naturalization and Port Lands Flood Protection Project. 

Vancouver’s Rainway is one of many projects that exemplify the impacts of ecologically-informed policies and design intervention. This relatively small streetscape project, represents a substantial hope-filled solution for the future into how cities can mitigate pressing global environmental challenges and help Canada to actually reach our 30×30 global biodiversity commitment. When implemented successfully, ecological corridors present us an opportunity to address biodiversity loss and habitat fragmentation, by reconnecting severed critical ecological networks, all the while preparing us for a more climate resilient future, improving our health, enhancing urban living.

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