Athabasca watershed council

water for life strategy 2003

three main goals are safe/secure drinking water supplies (social)

healthy aquatic ecosystems (environmental)

and reliable quality supplies for a sustainable economy (economic)

water management drivers

increasing pop growth, ag and industrial expansion, drinking water contaminants, 2001 drought and legal risk with junior water licenses

basically increase demand for pressure on water quality supplies - need to manage risk

what’s missing from WFL

indigenous consultation, climate change impacts?

adaptation and revisiting and changing policies

watershed planning and advisory councils

shared governance opportunity

gov and stakeholders share respons and govt retains legislative accountability

collaborative goals and problem solving built on trust

watershed stewardship groups in watershed management?

implementing ground action

stewardship and best practices, education and literacy and research to fill in gaps

watershed planning and advisory council in watershed management?

strategic plans, incentives and disincentives, monitoring and assessments and research to fill in gaps, planning, reporting, water literacy

there are 11 councils in alberta and they have iterative, adaptive, inclusive and continuous improvement throughout their work

GOA in watershed management?

policy direction, enabling legislation, regulations and enforcement, and monitoring and assessments

alberta water council in watershed management?

aiding in provincial policy direction

how do WPAC boards work?

representation from major stakeholders inclusing - governments (incl indigenous), NGOs from conservation, academia to recreation and public, and finally industry from forestry, oil and ggas, ag, mining, utilities

advisory

stakeholders

financial incentive to those impacted

from opposition to in agreement - all sides

why a watershed approach?

water cycle and climate change

many axes from upstream/downstream to highest and lowest sources and then surface and gw interactions

includes rivers, lakes, aquifers

indicator of our land use - place and people based - who is actually in the land

what issues do WPACs address?

water quality - surface and GW monitoring, pollution, source water protection

water quantity - allocations, consumption, conservation and re-use

ecosystem health - instream flow needs, biodiversity, SARA, invasive species, wetlands etc

landcover/use - cumulative effects of major industry

policy/plan integration, and climate change and its effects

athabasca watershed council

2009, a society and registered charity, has staff/summer students/interns, board seats and members, guided by vision, mission, values, strategic goals

consensus based, authority is at the table

completed a state of watershed report, identified different issues across watershed, prepared IWMP

the athabasca watershed

24% of alberta, but <4% of ab’s population

vast land diversity, lots of industry, parks, recreation, and new activities such as geothermal, minerals, etc

athabasca IWMP

road map for watershed management, advice for how to achieve water for life goals, implementing plan currently

athabasca watershed IWMP goals

goals includes safe/secure drinking water,

healthy/diverse ecosystems,

balancing social/economic/environmental,

natural land cover - mitigated land use pressure,

TEK informs decision making/planning,

policies aligned for health,

impacts of climate change inform,

sub basin and lake assessment are supported

IWMP learnings

20 strategies and 51 actions requires lots of time and resources

values are different across watershed

need to find local solutions and local working groups

collaborations are key

integrated land and water management

many scales - from advisory plans (watershed to lake)

and then they will influence statutory plans like provincial, regional, municipal and then resource plans

lower athabasca regional plan

legislated plan sets regional land use goals

air, water, land/biodiv management frameworks manage cumulative effects

red, yellow, green monitoring systems to see where limits are at - industry cautions

and this triggers a management response

south sask river basin management plan

regional scope of agricultural area

plan to balance social, land use and environmental health

water withdrawals - there are limits to the resource here, a closed basin to new water allocations

the 2024 drought and water sharing agreements

lac la biche sub-basin

to protect and improve water quality and balance econ/social/enviro

lake is nutrient rich and worsening

need to integrate statutory land use bylaws, statutory tools such as laws, nature based solutions, limits, reserves

G&S cattle and pigeon lake

watershed approach informing land use regulatory process

feedlot process expansion of 4000 head denied

but owners and municipalities worked to create a IWMP

challenges to IWMP

large landscape! different issues across and hard to get people on the same table

lack of comparable data, synthesis, translation, etc

need proactive vs reactive tools

opportunities to IWMP

new tools like GIS, drones, remote sensing, models, AI etc

recognition for nature based solutions to slow the flow