Oliver M. Brandes

Why a Water Soft Path, Why Now and What Then?

The best way to achieve a sustainable future for fresh water is to develop decision-making processes, institutions, and technologies that emphasize both efficiency and conservation. These two terms are commonly treated as synonyms, but, respectively, they reflect anthropogenic and ecological bases for making decisions. Recognizing that both perspectives are valid, this article outlines a new approach to water planning and management called the water soft path. This approach differs fundamentally from conventional, supply-based approaches. The article reviews the transfer of the original soft path concept from energy to water, and summarizes the first applications of water soft path analytics to specific geographic areas: one urban area, one province, and one watershed in Canada. The article concludes with suggestions for further research, as well as steps to improve recognition of the water soft path as a planning tool that can move management and policies towards economic, ecological, and social sustainability.

Introducing Resilience Practice to Watershed Groups: What Are the Learning Effects?

ABSTRACT Resilience as an organizing framework for addressing dynamics of social–ecological systems has experienced strong uptake; however, its application is nascent. This research study aimed to address the gap between resilience thinking and practice by focusing on learning, a key aspect of resilience. Two Canadian watershed groups were led in 2-day workshops focused on resilience. Learning effects were measured using a survey administered both before and after the workshop, and a qualitative survey was administered 6 months later to understand longer term effects. Short-term learning effects were similar between the two case studies, with strong cognitive and relational learning and less normative learning. Longer term effects showed enduring cognitive and normative learning in both cases; however, relational learning persisted only in the watershed where a resilience practice approach to watershed planning had been incorporated. Future research directions include refinements to the learning measurement methodology and continuing to build resilience practice literature.

Changing Currents: A Case Study in the Evolution of Water Law in Western Canada

New social, economic and environmental priorities are challengeing the Canadian water law regime. Water law in western Canada, a direct product of the colonial legal system and European settlement, illustrates many of the emerging tensions associated with a modern water management regime in flux. In an age of increasing hydrologic uncertainty with drier summers followed by more extreme storm events, lawmakers are seeking to increase resilience both for the environment and also for the institutions and the laws that govern freshwater resources. In Canada evidence of an evolving water law and management regime is already apparent—from developments in Aboriginal law that are changing how and who governs water, retreat by the federal government as an active participant in water resource management, to increased provincial efforts to fill that void.This chapter explains the structure and foundations of Canada’s approach to water law, in particular in western Canada; and explores how water law is changing, and what this reveals about the potential of a twenty-first century approach to water management and governance. It will explicitly review the primary allocation regimes that exist across Canada: modified common law riparian rights in the Maritime provinces and Ontario; Quebec’s civil law tradition; the authority management approach in the North; and the prior allocation system that underpins the prairie provinces and British Columbia. Through this discussion the chapter will set out the foundational principles that characterize the current approach to western water law. Investigation into the recent law reform in British Columbia provides the focus to better understand Canadian western water law and to identify characteristics of an emerging regime based on partnership and with an explicit emphasis on protecting water for nature. This case study explores how modern water governance requires a more collaborative approach where all governments, rights holders, and stakeholders have roles and responsibilities, with creative integration of top-down and bottom-up planning and decision-making. The example of British Columbia demonstrates how this water law regime is “changing the current”—evolving gradually toward a more collaborative and adaptable system with the promise of its new Water Sustainability Act.

Applying water soft path analysis in small urban areas: four Canadian case studies

Water soft paths begin from the vision that future water management has more to gain from reducing demand than from increasing supply. This article reviews three case studies of water soft path analysis in small urban areas in Canada, and one study of an urban planning process incorporating soft path concepts. The analytical studies indicate how communities can avoid the need for expansion of water infrastructure with negligible impacts on lifestyles or livelihoods. The planning study demonstrates that it is possible to introduce water soft paths early in a review, and that this will stimulate more ecologically sensitive thinking among citizens, officials and political leaders. Similar conclusions can be expected from soft path studies in urban areas elsewhere in the developed world.

Using demand elasticity as an alternative approach to modelling future community water demand under a conservation-oriented pricing system: An exploratory investigation

Water managers lack practical and readily available tools to inform them about what impact price changes (or changes in other drivers of water use) will have on demand – and therefore revenue – over both the short and long term. This paper examines how the concept of demand elasticity can be used to model changes in annual aggregate water use in response to future changes in major demand drivers including water and electricity prices, average income, population, level of business activity and climate. It does so by describing a pilot investigation completed in York Region in Southern Ontario, where a range of assumptions about price elasticities were used to calculate the rate of growth for water demand over a 40-year period. This investigation was deliberately exploratory and the findings can only be considered indicative and preliminary. However, with further development, the modelling approach described could provide an additional tool to help water managers understand changes in demand, and communities make the transition to a conservation-oriented water pricing system. Les gestionnaires de l’eau n’ont pas suffisamment d’outils pratiques et facilement accessibles à leur disposition pour pouvoir déterminer quelle sera l’incidence des fluctuations de prix (ou fluctuations liées à d’autres facteurs entourant l’utilisation de l’eau) sur la demande et, par conséquent, sur les revenus, aussi bien à court terme qu’à long terme. La présente communication examine la façon dont le concept de l’élasticité de la demande peut servir à modéliser les changements touchant l’utilisation globale annuelle de l’eau en réponse aux changements futurs liés aux principaux facteurs entourant la demande, notamment les prix de l’eau et de l’électricité, le revenu moyen, la population, le niveau d’activité commerciale et le climat. Dans cette optique, la présente communication décrit une étude pilote menée dans la région de York dans le sud de l’Ontario, où une gamme d’hypothèses à propos de l’élasticité-prix a servi à calculer le taux de croissance de la demande en eau sur une période de 40 ans. Cette étude était délibérément de nature exploratoire et les résultats peuvent uniquement être considérés comme étant indicatifs et préliminaires. Cependant, moyennant un développement plus poussé, l’approche de modélisation décrite pourrait fournir un outil supplémentaire qui aiderait les gestionnaires de l’eau à comprendre les fluctuations de la demande et les collectivités à entreprendre la transition vers un système de tarification de l’eau axé sur la conservation.