Integrated Water Management in Canada: The Experience of Watershed Agencies

This volume provides readers with an opportunity to learn from front line water managers of watershed-based agencies across Canada about integrated water management (or integrated water resource management). In common with practice in much of the world, the responsibility for implementing integrated watershed management in Canada is fragmented. Each province and territory in Canada has developed unique approaches or governance models to guide decision making in that regard. Thus, this edited volume enables readers from around the world to gain insight on the best practices in Canada for achieving success and addressing barriers to implement IWM.

Although there remains non consensus about how to best approach river basin management, some of the main observations include:

There is a need to balance a focus on the big picture , with scoping the scale and scope of planning activities in order that feasible and effective solutions can be implemented

Three types of integration are popular among the agencies included in the book: (i) among environment, economy and society, (ii) interactions between people and the environment and (iii) integration (or coordination) of administrative activities.

Much more attention is required to achieving effective engagement from Indigenous communities

The chapters were originally published in a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.