Program on Water Governance

New Book: Leaky Governance by K. Furlong

Dr Kathryn Furlong, Assistant Professor of Geography at the Université de Montréal and Program on Water Governance alumnus, has just published her new book titled ‘Leaky Governance’ with UBC Press. Congratulations Kathryn!

About the Book

Municipalities face important water supply challenges. These are widely attributed to local government politicization. Neoliberal reforms have only exacerbated the strained relationships between water utilities and local governments. In response, organizational reform to increase utility autonomy through alternative service delivery (ASD) has been promoted around the world. For its proponents, ASD offers independence from municipal government without relinquishing control over the utility; for its detractors, it is privatization under another name. Yet the organizational barriers offered by ASD are at best leaky. Deeply interdependent, both water management and municipal governance must be strengthened to meet contemporary water supply needs.

Leaky Governance explores ASD’s relation to neoliberalization, water supply, and local governance. Drawing on economic geography and political ecology, Kathryn Furlong examines organizational models for water supply and how they are affected by shifting governance and institutional environments. Her analysis of Ontario paints a complex picture of both ASD and municipal government.

Leaky Governance addresses urgent and topical questions in urban governance and water management, tackling increasingly pressing environmental, political, and social issues surrounding water supply and their relationship to urban governance and economics, as well as to broader issues in public policy.

For further information and a time-limited discount, see the attached flyer.

Two new publications by PoWG member Graham McDowell

New PoWG graduate student Graham McDowell has just published two co-authored papers on climate change adaptation in Nature Climate Change and WIREs Climate Change. Congratulations Graham!

Ford, J., McDowell, G., Pearce, T. (2015) The adaptation challenge in the Arctic. Nature Climate Change 5: 1046-1053.

It is commonly asserted that human communities in the Arctic are highly vulnerable to climate change, with the magnitude of projected impacts limiting their ability to adapt. At the same time, an increasing number of field studies demonstrate significant adaptive capacity. Given this paradox, we review climate change adaptation, resilience and vulnerability research to identify and characterize the nature and magnitude of the adaptation challenge facing the Arctic. We find that the challenge of adaptation in the Arctic is formidable, but suggest that drivers of vulnerability and barriers to adaptation can be overcome, avoided or reduced by individual and collective efforts across scales for many, if not all, climate change risks.

Ford, J. D., Stephenson, E., Cunsolo Willox, A., Edge, V., Farahbakhsh, K., Furgal, C., Harper, S., Chatwood, S., Mauro, I., Pearce, T., Austin, S., Bunce, A., Bussalleu, A., Diaz, J., Finner, K., Gordon, A., Huet, C., Kitching, K., Lardeau, M.-P., McDowell, G., McDonald, E., Nakoneczny, L. and Sherman, M. (2015). Community-based adaptation research in the Canadian Arctic. WIREs Climate Change

Community-based adaptation (CBA) has emerged over the last decade as an approach to empowering communities to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change. While such approaches have been widely advocated, few have critically examined the tensions and challenges that CBA brings. Responding to this gap, this article critically examines the use of CBA approaches with Inuit communities in Canada. We suggest that CBA holds significant promise to make adaptation research more democratic and responsive to local needs, providing a basis for developing locally appropriate adaptations based on local/indigenous and Western knowledge. Yet, we argue that CBA is not a panacea, and its common portrayal as such obscures its limitations, nuances, and challenges. Indeed, if uncritically adopted, CBA can potentially lead to maladaptation, may be inappropriate in some instances, can legitimize outside intervention and control, and may further marginalize communities. We identify responsibilities for researchers engaging in CBA work to manage these challenges, emphasizing the centrality of how knowledge is generated, the need for project flexibility and openness to change, and the importance of ensuring partnerships between researchers and communities are transparent. Researchers also need to be realistic about what CBA can achieve, and should not assume that research has a positive role to play in community adaptation just because it utilizes participatory approaches.

New funded graduate student position: Indigenous Water Co-Governance Research Project

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.

New thesis by Sameer Shah, MSc

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.

People of the Land: Dialogue series with the Mapuche Territorial Alliance

September 22-23, 2015

UBC | Unceded Coast Salish Territory

People of the Land: Dialogue series with the Mapuche Territorial Alliance will bring together two Indigenous leaders from the Mapuche Nation –Alberto Curamil and Miguel Melin– with Indigenous activists and scholars from North America to exchange ideas and share experiences about land recuperation, opposition to extractive industries on their traditional territories, customary law, and Indigenous childhood, language, and education.

The Mapuche Territorial Alliance (ATM) is one of the grassroots organizations based on the ancestral territory of the Mapuche Nation in the South of Chile – the Gulu Mapu, or west side of the Andes. The ATM’s core mission is the full defense of Mapuche inherent rights, especially with regard to the protection of the territory and the natural environment.

Everyone is welcome, but RSVP is required for the lunch on September 23rd.

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 22

2-4pm Panel on land recuperation: Yes, the discussion has always been about land

With Kanahus Manuel (Secwepemc Nation) and Chief Ian Campbell (Squamish Nation)

Liu Institute for Global Issues – Multipurpose Room

6476 North West Marine Drive

5-7pm Planting Poverty: Film screening and discussion about the impacts of the forestry industry on Indigenous lands

With Andrea Lyall (Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw Nation, UBC)

Simon K. Y. Lee Global Lounge – Media Centre

Building 1 2205 Lower Mall

Light refreshments provided

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 23*

10am-12pm Panel on Indigenous customary law: Strengthening Indigenous legal orders from within

With Sheryl Lightfoot (Anishinaabe Nation, UBC) and Angeline Nyce (Nisg̱a’a nation)

1-3pm Panel on Indigenous childhood: Language and cultural revitalization through Indigenous knowledge

With Jo-ann Archibald (Sto:lo and St’at’imc Nations, UBC)

* Venue for both panels: First Nations Longhouse – Sty-wet-tan Hall, 1985 West Mall

Lunch provided 12-1pm. RSVP to: mugarte@interchange.ubc.ca

Alberto Curamil is the spokesperson for the ATM. Community leader and traditional authority of the Curacautin area, Mapuche territory, he currently leads the opposition to the installation of hydroelectric power stations on several rivers across his traditional territory.

Miguel Melin is a Mapuche intercultural bilingual educator, activist, and former spokesperson for the ATM. He has extensive experience as a Mapuchezungun-Spanish teacher and has led several participatory projects with youth to revitalize the Mapuche language.

Presented with support from the Liu Institute for Global Issues, the Faculty of Forestry, the First Nations House of Learning, the Global Lounge, the Walter H. Gage Memorial Fund, the Faculty of Education, the Interdisciplinary Graduate Students Network, the Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and the School of Community and Regional Planning.

Introducing our new summer research assistants!

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.

Emma Norman receives Distinguished Book Award

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.

Watershed Metagenomics project update

The latest update on the Watershed Metagenomics project shares some of the major findings from the project from a GE3LS perspective (Genomics and its Ethical, Environmental, Economic, Legal and Social Aspects).

The GE3LS team includes Dr Karen Bakker, Dr Leila Harris and Gemma Dunn of the Program on Water Governance, who analyzed current microbial risk assessment, management and communication practices among practitioners in BC and Ontario. This research has identified key factors that enable and constrain the operationalization of microbial risk management and the readiness for integrating novel methods.

For a summary of the key insights from the GE3LS work, see the update.

More information is provided on the project website – www.watersheddiscovery.ca

New Book: A Political Ecology of Women, Water and Global Environmental Change

New book out: Buechler, S. and Hanson, A-M. S. (2015). A Political Ecology of Women, Water and Global Environmental Change. Routledge, London. Foreword by Dr. Leila Harris.

This edited volume explores how a feminist political ecology framework can bring fresh insights to the study of rural and urban livelihoods dependent on vulnerable rivers, lakes, watersheds, wetlands and coastal environments. Bringing together political ecologists and feminist scholars from multiple disciplines, the book develops solution-oriented advances to theory, policy and planning to tackle the complexity of these global environmental changes.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of environmental studies, development studies, feminist and environmental geography, anthropology, sociology, environmental philosophy, public policy, planning, media studies, Latin American and other area studies, as well as women’s and gender studies.

Order your copy here.

Talk by Dr Trevor Birkenholtz

Dr. Trevor Birkenholtz is visiting UBC this week (March 10-13, 2015). His visit is co-hosted by the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice (GRSJ) and Environment & Development: Gender, Equity, Sustainability (EDGES).

On Wednesday March 11 Dr. Birkenholtz is giving a talk titled ‘Water, Women and Rights: Rural Water Supplies, Drip Irrigation, and the (re)Feminization of agrarian labor in India’. All are welcome!

Date/time: 12.00-1.00pm 11 March
Location: GRSJ Jack Bell building
More information is available HERE

Dr. Birkenholtz is a cultural and political ecologist, and development geographer. His work attempts to link the political economy of access to and control over environmental resources, and ecological change (political ecology), to issues of technology, knowledge, and social power, more typical of research in science and technology studies (STS). To date, he has advanced these concerns by investigating the transformation of groundwater-based irrigation, and urban and rural water supplies in South Asia. He also serves as Environment and Society Section Editor for the journal Geography Compass.