Water Security:

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• Water Security
• The Governance Challenge
• Karen Bakker, UBC
• CWN Retreat, Victoria, June 2008

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The Governance Challenge

• Competition between uses and users
• Balancing multiple scales
• Boundary mismatches

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(No Transcript)
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Key governance challenges

• Inability to prioritize/mitigate competing uses
• Lack of sectoral integration
• Poor/inaccessible data
• Jurisdictional fragmentation

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Recent governance innovations

• Shift from government to governance
• Delegated water governance (Ontario, Alberta,
  Quebec, maybe B.C.?)
• Integrated legislative frameworks

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Our role Governance strategies

• Examples
• British Columbia government
• Should we delegate water governance? How?
• Municipal water supply utilities
• Restructuring governance and business models

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• Water Security
• sustainable access on a watershed basis to
  adequate quantities of water, of acceptable
  quality, for human and environmental uses

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Water Security Framework

• Our toolkit will include
• Governance Tools
• Official Community Plans
• Boil Water Advisory Response Protocol
• Decision Support Tools
• Water Security Index
• Groundwater Vulnerability/Risk Mapping

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Research Team

• Investigators Bakker, Allen, Teschke, McBean,
  Isaac-Renton, M'Gonigle, Journeay, Daborn, de
  Loë, Dube, Robin
• Partners
• Environment Canada BC Ministry of Agriculture
  Natural Resources Canada Walter Duncan Gordon
  Foundation BC Ministry of the Environment
  Policy Research Initiative Health Canada
  Township of Langley Grand River Conservation
  Authority Golder Associates Earth Sciences, SFU
  (and NSERC) Okanagan Basin Water Board Program
  on Water Governance, UBC SmartGrowth BC Polis
  Project, U Victoria Guelph, Waterworks
  Department Brantford Clearbrook Waterworks
  District GWSolutions

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Milestones

• Water Security Primer (Year 1)
• Water Security Framework (Years 2 3)
• Pilot-testing in Grand River and Lower Fraser
• Canadian Water Security Manual (Year 4)
• Extensive dissemination activities (Years 1 4)

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Acknowledgements

• CWN
• Walter Duncan Gordon Foundation
• Infrastructure Canada
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
• www.watergovernance.ca