Monitoring the Health of Vancouvers Waterfront Over Time Using Indicators of Sustainability

Georgia Strait Alliance is seeking to undertake the creation of a framework and baseline analysis of indicators that reflect the current health and resilience of City of Vancouvers waterfront over a broad cross-section of themes in order to further the objectives of their Waterfront Initiative (WI) project. Urban waterfronts globally are complex with multiple governing authorities, overlapping jurisdictions, and varying interests, all of which lead to a high degree of land-use conflict. The City of Vancouver having drastically increasing land values is also increasingly vulnerable to conflicts in this respect. Since 2013, the WI has been working to increase cross sector communication and guide a process to create a collaborative vision for the waterfront and achieve that vision alongside relevant organizations through targeted actions. To date, a series of cross-sector dialogues have revealed the desire and need for an assessment of the state of Vancouvers waterfront across specific theme areas in order to determine and prioritize where action is most necessary. This need will be met through the creation of a State of the Waterfront process and framework, which will serve to measure progress in protecting and improving Vancouvers waterfront health in areas of greatest need and impact.

Faculty Supervisor:

Peter Hall

Student:

Jeremy Arbuthnot

Partner:

Georgia Strait Alliance

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Environmental industry

University:

Simon Fraser University