Rosie Simms and colleagues recently published an article on collaborative watershed governance with First Nations in BC, based on research conducted with the Lower Similkameen Indian Band in 2013. The full text can be accessed via Geoforum: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016718515300701

The article draws on the research Rosie conducted for her Masters thesis, which can be accessed here.

Simms, R., Harris, L., Joe, N., and Bakker, K. (2016). Navigating the tensions in collaborative watershed governance: Water governance and indigenous communities in British Columbia, Canada. Geoforum, 73: 6-16.

First Nations in British Columbia (BC), Canada, have historically been—and largely continue to be—excluded from colonial governments’ decision-making and management frameworks for fresh water. However, in light of recent legal and legislative changes, and also changes in water governance and policy, there is growing emphasis in scholarship and among legal, policy and advocacy communities on shifting water governance away from a centralized single authority towards an approach that is watershed-based, collaborative, and involves First Nations as central to decision-making processes. Drawing on community-based research, interviews with First Nations natural resource staff and community members, and document review, the paper analyzes the tensions in collaborative water governance, by identifying First Nations’ concerns within the current water governance system and exploring how a move towards collaborative watershed governance may serve to either address, or further entrench, these concerns. This paper concludes with recommendations for collaborative water governance frameworks which are specifically focused on British Columbia, but which have relevance to broader debates over Indigenous water governance.

PoWG post-doctoral fellow Crystal Tremblay recently completed the participatory video component of a community-based research project on water and sanitation in Teshie, Ghana and Khayelitsha, South Africa.  Both videos are now final and available on YouTube. ‘Water is Life’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVZblhLGNqU) documents the situation of water and sanitation in Teshie, Accra and ‘It’s Your Chance’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbG_ljQ-hVo) is a co-production with the Iliso Care Society in Khyaletisha based on youth interviews on water and sanitation concerns in the community (Site C, Khayletisha).

More information on the participatory videos from Teshie and Khayelitsha and the community-based research project can be found on Crystal’s website http://www.crystaltremblay.com/

We are excited to announce a new Program on Water Governance funded graduate student position in the Indigenous Water Co-Governance Research Project.

The Program on Water Governance is currently conducting a Canadian governmentfunded research study in partnership with the First Nations University of Canada, Northwest Indian College, and a British Columbia First Nations community. Our project identifies and analyzes pathways whereby Indigenous Law and Indigenous Water CoGovernance might enable more sustainable, equitable water management. Our research collective is committed to Community-Based and decolonizing research methods in the spirit of reciprocal learning and engagement.

The project provides funding for a graduate student, starting in September 2016. The student will be working under the supervision of Dr. Karen Bakker.

The deadline for application is January 4th (Department of Geography) or January 18th (Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability).

For more information, please consult the position advertisement.

Congratulations to PoWG member Sameer Shah for successfully completing his MSc in Resource Management and Environmental Studies!

Sameer was supervised by Dr. Leila Harris and Dr. Hisham Zerriffi, and conducted his fieldwork under the guidance of Dr. Leonora Angeles. Sameer’s research focused on the intersection of farming livelihoods, changes in water access, and adaptation in the Philippines. His thesis is titled “Water variability, livelihoods, and adaptation: a case study from the Angat River Basin (Philippines)” and is available ONLINE.

Sameer is now commencing his PhD at IRES, UBC, where he will continue to work with the PoWG team.

Thesis Abstract: In the Global South, agrarian households face stressors to smallholder agriculture – a primary livelihood for many. One stressor increasingly documented is the re-allocation of surface irrigation for domestic and industrial uses. This is concerning because the timely, adequate, and predictable provision of irrigation was designed to enhance crop production and protect smallholders from hydro-climatic variation. Chapter 2 of this thesis examines a case from the Angat River Basin (Philippines) where a systematic set of rules have restructured reservoir governance to privilege domestic water use in Metro Manila over irrigation for regional rice farming. A review of multiple secondary datasets and an analysis of household surveys (n = 124) and interviews (n = 70) in a rice-farming municipality (Bustos) reveals that restructured reservoir governance arrangements now interact with existing effects of climatic variation to undermine the intended benefits of irrigation. Based on the nature of irrigation service change, Chapter 3 argues that on- and off-farm efficiency  measures alone are insufficient to protect households from risks of irrigation insecurity. Moreover, access to water alternatives is limited and increasingly uncertain. This suggests complementary and alternative (CA) livelihood activities are increasingly important as risk mitigation measures given irrigation service change and broader social-ecological stressors. All too often however, standardized livelihood activities promoted by governments encounter resistance, rejection, or are rendered irrelevant. One reason why proposed activities fail is because they do not align or overlap with certain CA activities that households are able and willing to engage in (termed here as “decision spaces”). Chapter 3 provides an integrative framework that allows policy-makers to better understand how contextual factors – from land-use regulations to cultural aspirations – constrain or widen household “decision spaces.” The framework is applied to Bustos providing direction for adaptation policy to i) promote CA livelihood activities that are both relevant and palatable to households; and to ii) challenge certain constraints to enlarge the set of activities household could engage in. Overall, this thesis represents an analysis of irrigation re-allocation as one facet of social ecological change in the Angat River Basin and provides measures for accommodating change effects through substantive recommendations for adaptation policy.

This summer EDGES & the PoWG are fortunate to have three new research assistants joining us to work on water research. Welcome to Jesse, Andrew and Iesha!

Jesse Way: 

Jesse is a recent graduate of the Natural Resources Conservation program within the Faculty of Forestry (BSc, Hons. Co-op). He is now completing a Certificate in Watershed Management though the Faculty of Land and Food Systems as well as the Practicum in Sustainable Agriculture through the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at the UBC Farm.

Jesse has experience working in the mining industry focusing on projects associated with water monitoring and mine reclamation. He has also worked as a research assistant in a Stream & Riparian Ecology Lab where he worked on projects investigating human impacts on fresh water ecosystems through forestry, agriculture and Run-of-River hydroelectric dams. He is particularly interested in the relationship between food and water and how human consumption patterns and methods of food production use and impact the natural environment including water resources and the people that depend on them.

Iesha Yue Wan Zhao Yuan:

Iesha is an undergraduate student in Bio-resource/Environmental Engineering at McGill university, where she worked on a bio-char research project and in the water-soil quality lab. She is currently assisting Dr.Harris’ research team on several water governance projects, including an analysis of submissions on the BC Water Sustainability Act. Iesha comes from a region where water is scarce and therefore precious and contentious; she chose to study environmental engineering with a focus on water resources in order to help alleviate the water shortage problem in her home region.

Andrew K. MacKinnon:

Andrew is an undergraduate student majoring in Environmental Science: Land, Air and Water accompanied with a minor in Economics at the University of British Columbia.  He is currently completing various tasks for Dr. Leila Harris and her work with the Program on Water Governance. He acquired the technical and practical skills needed for sustainable solutions to the global water crisis throughout his university coursework. Andrew is the president of the undergraduate environmental science student association and works towards collaborating with like-minded students to propose new ideas aimed at educating communities on the importance of sustainability and resource management.  His interests include understanding the interrelationships of socio-economic and environmental hardships felt across the world, specifically in developing countries.  His recent academic achievements include an independent study on the diurnal vertical migration of zooplankton in the Pacific Ocean and completion of various environmental and social impact assessments.

Congratulations to Dr. Emma Norman, who was awarded the 2015 Julian Minghi Distinguished Book Award!

Dr Norman was awarded this prize by the Political Geography Specialty Group for her new book: Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States and Indigenous Communities.

This award is given to the author of the best book published during the previous calendar year in the field of political geography. Dr Norman, a Program on Water Governance alumnus, is one of only a few women who have received the award, and the only person from a tribal college to ever have received the award.