Protecting Environmental and Cultural Water Through Collaborative Goverrnance and Impact Assessment: International, Canadian, and Saskatchewan Examples

Abstract

Human activities and climate change threaten freshwater resources and Indigenous rights. Developments (e.g., irrigation, dams, mines) cumulatively pollute and alter the hydrology of fresh water, affecting ecosystems (environmental flow/water) and Treaty and Inherent Rights (cultural flow/water). However, development assessment and management may not guarantee the protection or connectivity of water downstream. Regional sustainability-based guidance is needed through collaboration between Crown and Indigenous governments. Through interviews, workshops, ecohydrology, and policy analysis, this dissertation investigates strategies for collaborative governance and impact assessment to protect water for the environment, human uses, and Indigenous rights at three scales: globally, nationally (Canada), and regionally (Saskatchewan’s Treaty Four). Treaty Four studies were co-created with File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council’s Lands, Resources, Environment, and Stewardship Department (Ch. 2) and informed the design of global and Canadian studies. I systematically reviewed international English-language papers on the collaborative governance of environmental and cultural water to inform practice in Canada (Ch. 3). In Chapter 4, I investigated the uptake of environmental and cultural flows in Canadian legislation and assessment and suggested steps for their protection. Moving to Treaty Four, I examined barriers to water regulation (Ch. 5), developed flow-based sustainability criteria for the Qu’Appelle and South Saskatchewan sub-basins (Ch. 6), tested these criteria (Ch. 7), and proposed regional response options (Ch. 8) for the Lake Diefenbaker Irrigation Expansion and Agricultural Water Stewardship Policy (that promotes continued wetland drainage).

Overall, dissertation findings established that, worldwide, communities need to have a greater role in environmental and cultural water policy, planning, and impact assessment (Ch. 3). In Canada, experts detailed a need for water councils to set needs-based rules for environmental and cultural flows maintenance ahead of development (Ch. 4). In Saskatchewan, water protection is challenged because of abstraction and drainage not triggering assessments, impact and project splitting, a lack of regulation, weak effort to meet the duty to consult, and the absence of regional approaches for identifying and managing cumulative effects of abstraction and drainage initiatives (Ch. 5). Collaborative regional governance (Ch. 8) was identified as needed to support progress towards sustainability through restoration of water and land, equity, respect for Treaties, transparency, climate uncertainty, and procedural justice (Ch. 6, Ch. 7). Together, these studies demonstrate the opportunity for more collaborative regional governance and impact assessment of environmental and cultural water in Canada and inform recommendations for future management and study, provided in Chapter 9.