| | Water and land resources are interlinked, with each strongly influencing the other. Yet water management and land use planning have historically been dealt with separately. Now, under Alberta’s Water for Life strategy, stakeholders in all of Alberta’s major river basins are taking a more integrated approach, called watershed management, to maintaining healthy landscapes.
A watershed management approach considers the whole landscape in a watershed – land, water, plants, animals and people – and how all these components interact to affect the watershed’s health. “With watershed management, we’re seeing an evolution of resource management within the province,” says Rhonda King of Alberta Environment.
King sees two key catalysts in the shift to watershed management. One is Alberta’s Water Act, which came into effect in 1999. “The Water Act really started to identify in legislation what was being recognized globally – that managing water is about more than just how much water we take out or return to a river, that water influences and is influenced by the watershed.”
The other catalyst is the public input during development of the Water for Life strategy, a comprehensive strategy to address Alberta’s water issues. “Albertans said that we need to take a watershed approach. Just having a government department that is responsible for water management isn’t the best for water management or for watersheds. Everyone is involved [in watershed management]. And everyone brings in different sets of knowledge and ways of looking at issues,” explains King.
King is the project coordinator for the watershed management planning process in the Battle River basin (see map). She says, “When the Water for Life planning process started, the Battle River basin was in the midst of a drought and facing significant concerns about water supplies for current and future users. So Alberta Environment began discussing a water management plan for the river. Yet we also realized that we needed to be shifting to watershed planning. Our process is melding water management and watershed management.”
As a result, the process includes both traditional water management planning and the more complex, multi-jurisdictional considerations of watershed management planning. The process is currently in Phase 1, which involves three groups. The Working Group has several roles including collecting and analyzing water management data. The Battle River Watershed Advisory Group is composed of about 20 people from across the watershed and from diverse sectors, such as municipal government, agriculture, industry, wildlife, and others. This stakeholder group will work with the interdepartmental Steering Committee to make recommendations on water objectives and priorities based on the data from the Working Group. These recommendations will be the basis for developing a draft water management plan and provide direction for development of a watershed management plan.
In Phase 2, which will start in 2006, a Watershed Planning and Advisory Council will be formed for the basin. This multi-stakeholder council will have various responsibilities including developing and implementing the basin’s watershed management plan in consultation and cooperation with agencies, groups and individuals in the basin.
Stakeholder and public education is an essential part of the whole process. For example, to gain the knowledge needed to make informed recommendations, the members of the advisory group have been attending monthly information forums. These intense, day-long sessions include presentations and discussions on water and watershed management issues. Members of the Working Group and Steering Committee also take part in these forums, sharing information and learning from the discussions.
Watershed management is a complex undertaking that presents many challenges. But King believes the collective, integrated approach will get positive results. She says, “There’s no one person or one agency with jurisdiction over the whole watershed. So you have to bring everyone to the table to have buy-in for a watershed management plan. Everybody looks at the situation differently and sees different paths to the improvement. It’s the synergy of open discussion that produces creative solutions.”
More information about the Battle River Watershed Management Plan is available at: www3.gov.ab.ca/env/water/regions/battle/. For information about the Water for Life strategy, see the Winter 2005 issue of Green Matters or visit www.waterforlife.gov.ab.ca/. |
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