Sie können Operatoren mit Ihrer Suchanfrage kombinieren, um diese noch präziser einzugrenzen. Klicken Sie auf den Suchoperator, um eine Erklärung seiner Funktionsweise anzuzeigen.
Findet Dokumente, in denen beide Begriffe in beliebiger Reihenfolge innerhalb von maximal n Worten zueinander stehen. Empfehlung: Wählen Sie zwischen 15 und 30 als maximale Wortanzahl (z.B. NEAR(hybrid, antrieb, 20)).
Findet Dokumente, in denen der Begriff in Wortvarianten vorkommt, wobei diese VOR, HINTER oder VOR und HINTER dem Suchbegriff anschließen können (z.B., leichtbau*, *leichtbau, *leichtbau*).
Dieser Artikel geht auf die entscheidende Rolle von Umwelt- und Kulturströmen bei Folgenabschätzungen ein und betont die Notwendigkeit eines regionalen Ansatzes im Maßstab eines Wassereinzugsgebiets. Es geht auf die aktuellen Mängel bei Folgenabschätzungen ein, wie die mangelnde Berücksichtigung nachgelagerter Effekte und kumulativer Auswirkungen, und schlägt einen Rahmen für die "regionale Bereitschaft" vor, um Ökosysteme und Gemeinschaften besser zu schützen. Der Artikel basiert auf Interviews mit Praktikern, Politikberatern und Forschern und enthält eine Rahmenbewertung kanadischer Gesetze, Richtlinien und Folgenabschätzungen. Es zeigt beispielhafte Fälle aus Kanada auf, die eine erfolgreiche Integration von Umwelt- und Kulturströmen belegen, und gibt Empfehlungen zur Verbesserung von Folgenabschätzungsprozessen. Der Artikel argumentiert, dass Folgenabschätzungen, wenn sie sich auf regionale Bereitschaft und kooperative Governance konzentrieren, die miteinander verbundenen ökologischen, sozialen und rechtsbasierten Aspekte des Wassermanagements besser berücksichtigen können.
KI-Generiert
Diese Zusammenfassung des Fachinhalts wurde mit Hilfe von KI generiert.
Abstract
Considering regional impacts on downstream communities and ecosystems is challenging in impact assessments. We suggest that environmental and cultural flows have the potential to be applied to protect water more comprehensively in assessment but are currently underutilized. Environmental and cultural flows refer to adequate water quantity and quality for the environment and Indigenous rights. Through interviews and a scoping review of legislation and assessments, we address how these concepts are and could be embedded within Canadian impact assessments. To date, environmental flows have been considered in assessments involving dams, oil and gas, and mining, and the focus has been on fish and habitat, rather than Indigenous rights and cumulative withdrawals. We propose Regional Readiness through water councils, change, and consensus (three Cs) to prepare watershed actors to protect environment and cultural flows in impact assessments. The three Cs are: (1) Advisory councils dedicated to creating regional objectives and rules for ecosystem and rights-based needs, (2) Assessing hydrologic and water quality change with regional data and relationships to water, and (3) Building consensus on the cultural and ecological significance and sensitivity of water bodies. Development of this framework follows examples from Canadian water-related assessments and initiatives: Wolastoq Ecological Limits of Hydrological Alteration, Athabasca Chipewyan and Mikisew Cree assessments, Yinka Dene Water Management Policy, Grand Council Treaty #3 Nibi Declaration, Slave Watershed Environmental Effects Program, and Strategic Assessment of Wood Buffalo National Park. These cases demonstrate how the inclusion of environmental and cultural flows processes in assessment could enable greater water protection.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Introduction
Most impact assessments focus on individual development projects and struggle with regional impacts to downstream communities and ecosystems (Therivel and Ross 2007; Ehrlich 2021). This is especially true when impacts are cumulative – when stressors from all human activities interact to affect the environment and human well-being (Clogg et al. 2017; Hackett et al. 2018; Blakley and Russell 2020, 2021). In important watersheds, past projects have been planned and assessed without adequate consideration of downstream impacts to ecosystems and Indigenous Nations despite potential for substantial adverse impacts (Udofia et al. 2017; Arsenault et al. 2019; Eckert et al. 2020). In particular, agreeing on valued components and meaningful inclusion of Indigenous Nations has resulted in challenges to assessing impacts to downstream water users, ecosystems, and rights (Sinclair et al. 2017; Udofia et al. 2017; Ehrlich, 2021). To enable more inclusive impact assessment processes at regional and watershed scales, scholars and practitioners have advocated better coordinated and more inclusive efforts in baseline monitoring, cumulative effects assessment, objective setting, and determining a future that is better than what is promised by current trajectories (Duinker and Greig 2006; Dubé et al. 2013; Foley et al. 2017; Sinclair et al. 2017). However, accomplishing this and connecting the resulting recommendations to decision-making remain rare in practice (Jones 2016; Foley et al. 2017; Gibson et al. 2020).
One promising approach to regional cumulative effects assessment of downstream ecosystem and community impacts centres on environmental and cultural flows processes (Bergbusch et al. 2025). Environmental flows are defined generally as the quantity, timing, availability, and quality of fresh water to sustain waterbodies and ecosystems that support human livelihoods and well-being (Arthington et al. 2018). This includes, for example, how flow regime and water level changes affect water quality, nutrient cycling, benthic invertebrates, fish passage and spawning, and more (Monk et al. 2017; Douglas et al. 2019). Cultural flows refer to “water entitlements that are legally and beneficially owned by the Indigenous Nations of a sufficient and adequate quantity and quality to improve the spiritual, cultural, environmental, social and economic conditions of those Indigenous Nations” (Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations and Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations 2007, p. 2). Cultural flows may also be referred to as Indigenous flows (Jackson et al. 2015). Examples include how water movement and quality relates to navigation, harvesting, ceremony, and Treaty and Inherent Rights (Morgan 2012; Andrews et al. 2018; Moggridge and Thompson 2021). Assessment processes that consider cultural flows are a means to uphold Indigenous rights and respect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Kovach 2011; Anderson et al. 2019). Cultural flows assessments may also consider non-Indigenous stakeholder values and nature-based needs (Anderson et al. 2019). There is an overlap between environmental and cultural flows and water in general, with environmental and cultural water being the amount of water allocated for people and the environment and flows being the delivery of that water (Horne et al. 2017; Stewardson and Guarino, 2018). When we refer to environmental and cultural flows, we also mean environmental and cultural water governance practices and processes.
Anzeige
There are many methods to determine environmental and cultural flows to support holistic water management. Environmental flows processes include over 200 methodologies (Tharme 2003; Linnansaari et al. 2013) and there are a number of Indigenous Nation-specific approaches to determine cultural flows (Jackson 2021; Bergbusch et al. 2025). Together, environmental and cultural flows include a spectrum of methods from quantitative/statistical approaches (e.g., Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration, Weighted Usable Area) (Tharme 2003), to blended qualitative and quantitative science approaches (e.g., navigation index, Aboriginal flow thresholds) (Candler et al. 2010; Peters et al. 2023), to holistic frameworks (e.g., Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration [ELOHA]) (Poff et al. 2010; Finn and Jackson 2011), and other approaches that centre Indigenous science and governance frameworks (e.g., Cultural Flow Preference Study, Kamilaroi methodology) (Tipa and Nelson 2012; Moggridge et al. 2022). Now there is also a growing recognition of environmental and cultural flows concepts as a basis for hydro-social-ecological planning that supports active community involvement and governance negotiation (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2013; Anderson et al. 2019; Douglas et al. 2019; Leonard et al. 2023). However, past research has shown that despite an international call for inclusion through The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda (International River Foundation 2007; Arthington et al. 2018), environmental and cultural flows are rarely addressed in impact assessments, except for recommending minimum flow requirements and in some cases linking biophysical initiatives (generally fish and fish habitat) to altered flow regimes (King and Brown 2018; Bergbusch et al. 2025). King and Brown (2018) discuss the potential application of environmental flows to inform different levels of impact assessment, but there is a need to further substantiate how both environmental and cultural flows could be most effectively considered at different levels of impact assessment (strategic, regional, project-level) to enable greater protection of downstream ecosystems and communities. Environmental and cultural flows are an opportunity to highlight the interconnected ecological, social, and rights-based aspects of water flow, allocation, and quality in impact assessments.
In Canada, the federal Impact Assessment Act, passed in 2019 (and amended in 2024), enables the use of regional assessments to address multiple project impacts, cumulative effects, and other matters affecting entire regions (Government of Canada 2019). However, although a policy framework for regional assessments has been developed by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (Government of Canada 2025a), more guidance is needed, for example, to clarify and elaborate the core expectations and range of possibilities for how regional assessments are to be initiated, what matters the most, what processes and/or methods must/may be used, what results these processes/methods must/may deliver, along with establishment of good practice (Gibson 2020; Hunsberger et al. 2020). Such guidance is especially needed for watersheds in Canada that experience fragmented governance in which Indigenous, federal, provincial, and territorial interests/jurisdictions overlap and may be in conflict with each other (Bakker and Cook 2011). Historically, Crown water decision-making processes in Canada have not adequately considered related concepts: cumulative effects; environmental flows; social-ecological systems; and Indigenous rights, impact assessments, and governance (Curran 2019; McGregor 2021; Lajoie-O’Malley et al. 2023). In contrast, Indigenous decision-making processes and impact assessments in Canada have taken a more regional lens than other project-level assessments and have supported broader valued ecosystem components related to, for example, way of life, governance, kinship, relationality and stewardship (Candler et al. 2015; Squamish Nation 2015; Tsleil-Waututh Nation 2015; Gibson et al. 2018; FNMPC 2020; Nishima-Miller et al. 2024). Overall, Canada is beginning to change to reflect more co-governance cumulative effects models (Clogg et al. 2017), but there is a need for greater representations of Rights holder and stakeholder voices in assessments (Barnard-Chumik et al. 2022; Gilmour and Stacey 2024).
How environmental and cultural flow initiatives can contribute to this change (co-governance and more community involvement in impact assessment) is unclear, but Phare et al. (2017) suggest that there may be an opportunity for more collaborative consent in water management and development decisions. In Canada, high court decisions based on section 35 of the Constitution Act have established a legal obligation for duty to consult with Indigenous Nations (Government of Canada 2025b), and commitment to the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP; UN General Assembly 2007) in 2021 has furthered opportunities for affirming the right to “free, prior and informed consent” by affected Indigenous Peoples in development decision-making (Government of Canada 2023). In Canada’s province of British Columbia, the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at the University of Victoria outlines a process to meet the duty to consult obligations called collaborative consent which involves, “Co-governed regional decision-making tables…to propose appropriate regional and site-specific environmental flow standards/thresholds, water reserves, and/or sensitive stream designations and requirements” (Phare et al. 2017, p. 20). A decade ago, Nowlan (2012) reviewed Canadian water acts and found a lack of specific legislation for environmental flows and variable legislative approaches across the country. Nowlan suggested that the now superseded Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of 2012 may have implicitly offered some protection for environmental flows through water valued ecosystem components, but there was limited attention to cultural flows. Beyond water and assessment laws, the degree to which environmental and cultural flows are protected in impact assessment, regional assessments, and the evaluation of policies and plans in Canada today is unclear.
In this study, we focus on the Canadian context to explore how to further embed environmental and cultural flows concepts within impact assessment policy and practice. We follow a grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) process that involves interviews with practitioners, researchers, policy advisors, and regulators, exemplary cases, and a complementary scoping review to address the questions:
1.
How have environmental and cultural flows concepts and approaches been incorporated within Canadian laws, policies, programs, and impact assessment?
2.
What are existing barriers to the protection of regional and downstream ecosystems and communities in watersheds in impact assessment?
3.
How would the use of environmental and cultural flows concepts and approaches contribute to impact assessments (project, regional, strategic) conducted in watersheds in Canada?
Anzeige
We synthesize knowledge and opinions to contribute to broader conversations about more appropriate inclusion of regional communities and ecosystems in impact assessment in Canada.
Methodology
The primary researcher in this study is a settler aquatic scientist and social scientist from the Canadian Prairies. One of us is a Shinnecock Nation scientist with water governance and eco-jurisprudence law expertise. The remaining authors are settlers with various expertise in aquatic sciences, environmental flows, and sustainability assessment. The authors wanted to create this research study to broaden perspectives on water in different levels of impact assessment. This research received ethics approval through the University of Waterloo’s Research Ethics Board (#44209).
We employed a grounded theory methodology, which is used to generate conceptual frameworks based on analysis of collected data and individuals’ experiences (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Charmaz 2006; Chun Tie et al. 2019). New interviewees/contributors are recruited based on emergent themes from the analysis and the research process is finished when no new ideas are emerging to inform the new conceptual framework (Chun Tie et al. 2019). This approach is employed to describe a core category that generally represents and explains the entire grounded theory and secondary categories from which the core category was developed (Birks and Mills 2015; Braun and Clarke 2021). We applied this approach, inspired by Baines’s (2021) work on cultural flows, to examine the nexus of environmental and cultural flows, impact assessment, and collaborative governance.
Practitioners, researchers, regulators, and policy advisors with expertise relevant to environmental flows, cultural flows, and/or impact assessment were recruited for this study. Contributors received a call to participate, an information letter, a consent form, an interview guide, and an information document. We facilitated 30 interviews with 34 contributors who had diverse backgrounds (Table 1). Most contributors drew from their practice across Canada (21 of 34), but there was representation from British Columbia (6), Alberta (6), Saskatchewan (2), Manitoba (1), Ontario (10), Québec (1), New Brunswick (5), Nova Scotia (1), Prince Edward Island (1), and the Northwest Territories (1). Interviews were either individual or dyadic if contributors worked together. Recruitment and interviews occurred in two phases (June to August 2022 and September to November 2022).
Table 1
Demographic information about study contributors
Demographic Information
Contributors (n = 34)
# of Interviews (30)
Location of Practice
(n)
Across Canada
21
Specific Province or Territory
13
Background
(n)
Environmental and Cultural Flows
9
Impact Assessment
15
Flows and Assessment
10
Expertise
(%)
Hydrogeomorphological
17
Biophysical
43
Socio-Cultural
23
Social-Ecological
20
Rights-Based
20
Assessment Experience
(%)
Project-level
37
Regional and Strategic
30
Policy and Reviewer
23
Law and Regulatory
20
Researcher on Theory and Practice
40
Practitioner
43
Supporting or Representing Indigenous Communities or Organizations
50
Part of Land Management Board
13
See codebook in supplementary materials for more information on identifiers
The first phase of the grounded theory application consisted of soliciting experiences and information from environmental-cultural flows experts that would later inform the discussion with impact assessment experts (phase two). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews over Zoom for 45 to 75 min. The interview guide can be found in the Supplementary Materials. First, recruitment invitations were sent through the Canadian Rivers Institute, the Canadian Water Network, and to participants of the 2018 Natural Science and Engineering Research Council CONNECT Workshop on Environmental Flows (Kidd et al. 2018). This was then followed by the recruitment of contributors based on emergent themes and recommendations for experts who could speak to new themes. Emergent themes were often highlighted in subsequent interviews. Fifteen contributors were part of the first phase. During and after the first phase of interviews, all emergent themes were coded, and open categories were developed to inform the recruitment of impact assessment contributors. Impact assessment contributors were identified through social networks, publications and reports, the Network for Expertise and Dialogue for Impact Assessment, and impact assessment-related organizations, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous led. Contributors in phase two were provided with information describing potential applications of flow concepts. A total of 22 contributors were recruited in phase two. Theoretical saturation was reached in November of 2022 when key contributors (5–10) addressed 80–90% of emergent themes and no new major themes emerged (Guest et al. 2006; Chun Tie et al. 2019) (Supplementary Fig. 1).
Data from interviews were coded through thematic analysis that involved open and axial coding manually and in NVivo (Braun and Clarke 2006; Chun Tie et al. 2019). Open coding, coding line by line in transcripts, began after the first interview and continued thereafter to examine emergent themes. Axial coding, meaning the examination of the similarities and overlaps between emergent themes, was used to interconnect emergent themes and create three key categories. Contributors mentioned exemplary cases in Canada that were used to inform the categories. These categories then informed the creation of a central core category (Chun Tie et al. 2019). The three key categories created a framework to explain the central core category and needed pre-conditions for its achievement.
A scoping review of the inclusion of environmental and cultural flows in Canadian water laws, policies, programs, and impact assessments was completed in 2022–2023 alongside interviews. Water acts, regulations, policies, and programs were purposively sampled from government websites (Supplementary Table 1). Impact assessment documents were collected from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada’s website. We chose to only investigate federal impact assessment documents because, following our grounded theory process, contributors directed us to examine environmental and cultural flows federally, as they are more likely to be addressed in joint panel reviews (both federal and provincial requirements) because of their attention to water-based impacts under federal authority (e.g., Fisheries Act) and provincial authority (e.g., British Columbia Water Sustainability Act). We extracted impact assessments from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada’s registry if they, or their supporting documents, included one of the following terms: “instream flow needs”, “ecological base flow”, “environmental flow”, “cultural flow”, and “Indigenous flow”. Supporting documents also included Indigenous-led studies or assessments if they were linked; however, Indigenous-led initiatives are included to a greater degree in the exemplary cases mentioned by interviewees. We looked for these same words in acts and policies, and regulations were only examined if acts included these terms. To analyze scoping review documents, we identified key themes through document (Bowen 2009; Morgan 2022) and thematic analyses (Braun and Clarke 2006, 2023).
Multiple limitations of this study need to be addressed. First, while the second phase of participants were provided with a list of recommendations from the first phase, we did not go back to participants to confirm or validate their recommendations. Participant validation can occur as part of a grounded theory and thematic analysis process but is not a requirement (Corbin and Strauss 1990; Chun Tie et al. 2019; Braun and Clarke 2023). Instead, the final recommendations and framework were a product of the team’s interpretative and analytical work, which is an appropriate outcome for a grounded theory process (Corbin and Strauss 1990; Chun Tie et al. 2019; Braun and Clarke 2023). Second, we interviewed practitioners, policy advisers, regulators, researchers, and representatives of Indigenous organizations and communities. However, another paper could explore case studies of cultural flows put forward by Indigenous communities across Canada and involve Indigenous communities to an even greater degree. Third, we describe a holistic water management process for impact assessment but do not get into extensive detail about who will pay for or house this process. We mention that the Canada Water Agency may be an opportune institution to house this process (Government of Canada 2024), but funding would likely come from multiple, matched sources – federal and provincial government funding, tribal centre grants, and proponent contributions. Fourth, generally, people do not agree on what impact assessments are meant to achieve, their deficiencies, and solutions. There are varying opinions presented in this paper about these topics and one or two contributors disagreed that environmental and cultural flows would be an asset to current impact assessment practice. However, all contributors were deemed as able to speak on the topics of environmental and cultural flows and impact assessment based on control or framing questions about their experience with the topics. Lastly, environmental and cultural flows are challenging concepts to examine in impact assessment because these concepts cut across disciplines and may be considered implicitly in valued ecosystem component determinations. As such, we may have underestimated the prevalence of environmental flows ideas in impact assessment in Canada.
Results
Scoping Review of Legislation, Policies, and Impact Assessments
A total of eight federal acts, 19 provincial and territorial acts, eight regulations, 24 policies/programs, and 19 completed impact assessments (39 and then screened to 19 based on completion) were included (Fig. 1). Of the eight federal acts and 19 provincial and territorial acts identified (Fig. 1, Supplementary Table 1), only two directly aim to protect environmental flows (BC and PEI), and none address cultural flows. However, 19 provincial/territorial policies and 19 joint federal-provincial impact assessments from across Canada included environmental flows, whereas two impact assessments referred to a cultural flow/water process.
Fig. 1
Canadian maps displaying where there is explicit consideration of environmental flows and cultural flows in provincial and territorial water acts (A), provincial and territorial water policies and programs (B), and joint provincial, territorial, federal water-related impact assessments (C)
British Columbia’s 2014 Water Sustainability Act, Prince Edward Island’s 2021 Water Act, Alberta’s 2000 Water Act, and their regulatory frameworks include greater environmental flow protection provisions compared to other Canadian jurisdictions (Fig. 1). British Columbia’s Water Sustainability Act enables that, during drought, if a critical environmental flow threshold has been met, environmental flows can take priority over other water uses (section 22) (Government of British Columbia 2014). British Columbia’s Water Sustainability Act and Water Sustainability Regulation also include information about where water for the environment may not be diverted from, such as sensitive areas or where there are Treaty First Nation or Nisga’a water reservations (retain reserved water in the water body) – (sections 40 and 41 of the Act) (Government of British Columbia 2014, 2016). Prince Edward Island’s 2021 Water Act enables the Minister to stop a water withdrawal approval for commercial, industrial, or recreational purposes if that approval would interfere with the attainment of environmental flow needs (section 8) (Government of Prince Edward Island 2021). However, Prince Edward Island’s Water Withdrawal Regulation sets out priority use in cases where there is not enough water to meet all demands (e.g., fire suppression, household water, and industries in the public interest supersede environmental flow needs) (Government of Prince Edward Island 2022). While Alberta’s Water Act does not use the term environmental flows, we chose to emphasize Alberta in Fig. 1A because the Minister may hold 10% of water transferred from licence holders for conservation purposes (section 83) and order licensees to reduce or stop water use if there is a risk of causing “a significant adverse effect on the aquatic environment” (section 97) (Government of Alberta 2000). British Columbia, Alberta, and Prince Edward Island’s water acts enable the consideration of water licences and flows protection provisions in sustainable management plans, and British Columbia’s Water Sustainability Act promotes the establishment of advisory boards to offer advice on environmental flows (section 115) (Government of British Columbia 2014). Other provincial and territorial acts mention flows, ecosystem protection, sustainability, water withdrawal authorization (e.g., Québec) and licence restrictions to meet purposes such as instream flow needs, and the opportunity for ministers to reallocate water for other uses like instream flows (e.g., Saskatchewan and Manitoba) (Wenig et al. 2006; reviewed in Horbulyk 2017, pp. 36-40). Overall, there is varying consideration of environmental flows in provincial and territorial water acts and no inclusion of cultural flows (Wenig et al. 2006; Horbulyk 2017).
At the federal level, no acts explicitly include the terms environmental or cultural flows. However, through the Impact Assessment Act, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada has prepared tailored impact statement guidelines that require proponents to examine water quality, quantity, fish and fish habitat, and now more social components (Government of Canada 2022). The Fisheries Act does not include the term environmental flows explicitly, but the Minister may make regulations to protect flow for fish, fish passage, and habitats (section 7) (Government of Canada 1985a). The Species at Risk Act also indirectly includes attention to environmental flows by protecting wildlife species and their critical habitat (section 58) (Government of Canada 2002). The CanadianNavigable Waters Act enables the Governor in Council to make regulations “respecting water levels and water flow necessary for navigation” (section 28) (Government of Canada 1985b). The Canada Water Act provides a framework for the different government jurisdictions to collaborate on concerns related to water resources but does not mention environmental flows, cultural flows, or Indigenous water rights (Government of Canada 1985c).
Alberta and British Columbia had the greatest number of policies and program initiatives for the protection of environmental flows and cultural flows to a lesser extent (Fig. 1). This included, for example, Alberta’s Environmental Flows Program and Projects, Future Flows, Surface Water Allocation Direction and British Columbia’s Beneficial Use Declaration, Environmental Flow Needs Policy, and Water Authorization Application Assessment and Processing. Québec also included ecological reserve (not only for fish and habitat but water quality, biodiversity, and tourism) and environmental flows in their Water Policy (Government of Québec 2002) and La Politique de Débits Réservés Écologiques pour la Protection du Poisson et de ses Habitats (Faunes et Parcs Québec 1999), respectively. There was no explicit attention to cultural flows other than inclusion of Indigenous rights in BC water policy. This included reservation of water for future uses by a Treaty Nation under BC’s Application of Water Allocation Notations to Water Authorizations (Government of British Columbia 2021) and First Nations consultation and legal objection under the Water Authorization Application Assessment and Processing for Applicants (Government of British Columbia 2019).
Environmental flows are considered to varying degrees in impact assessment in Canada and cultural flows only appeared in two instances (Fig. 1, See Supplementary Table 2 for more information). Nineteen Joint Panel Reviews mentioned some form of environmental flows determination, described as an instream flow need (25%), base flows (20%), ecological flow (5%), environmental flow (30%), or sometimes simply water flow with some reference to ecological components (20%). Despite Indigenous rights (e.g., right to fish, hunt, gather, and navigate) being included in greater than 60% of federal assessments surveyed, only two completed assessments (Jackpine Mine, Blackwater Gold), to our knowledge, explicitly referred to a cultural flow or water process. For example, the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan (AB) Indigenous flows were included in the Jackpine Mine and Frontier Project (canceled) and the water quality guidelines developed by the Yinka Dene (BC) were included in the Blackwater Gold Project. However, some assessments did highlight related social valued components, like navigation, access to land, and rights. Assessments were of mines and minerals (11), dams and reservoirs (6), oil and gas (1), roadways, and an intermodal logistics hub (1) in British Columbia (6), Alberta (6), Ontario (3), Newfoundland and Labrador (2), and Saskatchewan (2). In many cases, the approach to assessing environmental flows was not mentioned, but while there was no mention of holistic frameworks, there was mention of minimum flows, hydrological models, and hydraulic methods. Additionally, only three impact assessments related environmental flows determinations to a greater water management framework that considers cumulative effects.
Issues and Gaps when Considering Regional and Downstream Water Impacts to Ecosystems and Communities in Assessments in Canada
Contributors expressed that there are challenges to protecting regional and downstream ecosystems and communities in impact assessments in watersheds (see Table 2). Challenges that were spoken about in detail by study contributors are briefly discussed below, including scoping disagreements, inattention to cumulative effects, and coordination of responsible authorities.
Table 2
Challenges to protecting downstream ecosystems and water users in impact assessments described by study contributors
Challenges to Protecting Downstream Ecosystems and Water Users
Description
Capacity and funding
Not enough monetary support or a lack of process in impact assessment and engagement to include regional and downstream Rights holders and stakeholders.
Data gaps
Lacking regional watershed information and data or a process to collate and synthesize natural and social science information and data.
Disciplinary siloes
Compartmentalization of impact assessment disciplines (physical, biophysical, socio-economic) with effort to coordinate but difficulties in practice.
Governance negotiation
The need to negotiate governance goals for watersheds ahead of impact assessments to identify if projects interfere with the ability to govern by Rights holders.
Scoping disagreements
Contention over chosen spatial, temporal, and contextual (institutions/organizations to include) scales to determine impacts on valued components.
Limited regulatory oversight
No legislation to protect environmental and cultural flows and water or broader water goals in impact assessment.
Political bias and screening projects
Regional political agendas and economic motivations interfering with proper assessment of proposed projects or dictating which projects require assessments.
Coordination of responsible authorities
Coordination challenges and a risk of diffusion of responsibility because of multiple jurisdictions with overlapping authority to trigger assessment, regulate assessment components (the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Water Acts, etc.), or influence decisions that are independent of assessments but affect cumulative stressors.
No existing thresholds
No consensus on limits for water levels, flow, withdrawal, or quality within a region.
Unclear assessment triggers
Not designating an impact assessment because of divergent interpretations of triggers for the process.
Unsatisfactory engagement
Engagement processes that inform communities rather than create mutually beneficial partnerships.
Inattention to cumulative effects
Minimal consideration of broader cumulative effects of multiple project developments within a region.
Scoping Disagreements of Impact Assessments
Contributors mentioned that narrow project boundaries and scales for impact assessments may limit the protection of ecosystems and communities. A practitioner in Alberta remarked that, “Canada would like to scope down regional impact assessments and communities and Indigenous [Peoples] would like to see these things scoped up, and that’s going to be a real problem of expectations not being met.” Contributors in British Columbia and New Brunswick mentioned that the scope and scale of the investigation of water quantity and quality is constrained by project boundaries rather than by environmental or cultural scales of interest, such as those relevant to downstream ecosystems and water users.
Inattention to Cumulative Effects of Water Withdrawal and Degradation
Contributors described that the effects of water withdrawal and degradation are difficult to understand because cumulative effects are generally only investigated at the project level. A practitioner in Alberta added that there is no clear “articulation of how much is too much (water withdrawal and degradation)” and mentions that there is a need to consider ecohydrology for “greater mitigation and reclamation to ensure environmental flows are established and maintained.” When the cumulative effects of water withdrawals are mentioned in impact assessments, a regulator in Ontario suggests that these are generally listed but could be substantiated more through greater evaluation and consideration.
Coordination of Responsible Authorities Across Jurisdictions
Contributors discussed how the fragmented water governance and impact assessment landscape in Canada makes the protection of ecosystems and communities difficult. A reviewer in Alberta noted: “If Canada does regional assessments, what does that mean in terms of managing cumulative or project-specific effects if they’re not the ones issuing the [water] licences.” A regulator in the same province reflected on values that might underpin decisions: “Water as a resource is considered by provincial regulators through their water act, but the values that are driving the regulatory regime are transactional and commodity-based, not ecological or culturally based.” Contributors described that collaboration with Indigenous Nations, provinces/territories, and the federal government is needed for greater jurisdictional coordination and appreciation of water values.
Steps to Protect Environmental and Cultural Flows in Impact Assessments Conducted in Watersheds in Canada
Core Category – Regional Readiness
To protect downstream and regional ecosystems and communities in watersheds and direct assessment processes towards ecological- and cultural-based goals, we propose Regional Readiness as the core category in our grounded theory (Fig. 2). This emerged from 11 themes (Table 3), key categories developed from those themes (the three Cs: water councils, water change, and water consensus), and exemplary cases in Canada related to environmental and cultural flows. Regional Readiness is a state of preparedness that those engaged in the governance of a watershed can reach to act in the interests of human communities, ecosystems, rights, and their interactions. Figure 2 depicts steps required (three Cs) to reach Regional Readiness. Investigating how to protect environmental and cultural water to build Regional Readiness ahead of assessment is important to:
1.
Scope in environmental and cultural water values – “The place where society more appropriately values water from an ecological or cultural lens is not at the level of an impact assessment. It happens way sooner (regionally through planning and ahead of assessment)” (regulator in Alberta).
2.
Capture the hydro-social-ecological system – “Environmental-cultural flow is the status of the whole social-ecological-hydrological system that is necessary to keep that interconnected system healthy” (policy advisor in British Columbia).
3.
Create a water-centred process – “Decision-making must consider what the ecosystem needs first…without that, we take what we need and there’s a death by a million cuts. Eventually, you have a baseline that is continually shifting until there’s nothing left.” (lawyer in Alberta).
Fig. 2
The grounded theory structure for the application and protection of environmental and cultural flow/water concepts in impact assessment planning processes
Recommendations and requisites for the protection of environmental and cultural flows ahead of, and as part of, impact assessments
Theme
Recommendations and Requisites
Interviews (%)
Thematic Codes (#)
Baseline
Sufficient hydro-social-ecological information to assess a new project within a watershed. This baseline information could include, for example, long-term knowledge of water flow between seasons (e.g., spring peaks and groundwater baseflows) and historic water quality degradation (nutrients, toxic algal blooms). Second, consider connections of hydrology and water quality to floodplain connectivity, fish habitat and spawning, sediment transport, estuary formation, seed dispersal, benthic invertebrates, nutrient cycling, navigation, fishing, ceremony, and practice of Indigenous rights.
73
35
Cumulative effects
Examine the cumulative effects of water abstraction, drainage, and pollution for watersheds based on small and large dams, agricultural drainage projects, mines, and projects that have and have not been historically designated for impact assessments ahead of new development.
80
27
Early collaboration
Strengthen the pre-planning phase of impact assessments for greater linkages between watershed planning, strategic and regional assessments, and project-level assessments.
80
45
Inclusive scoping
Broaden the temporal and spatial scales of impact assessments and form collaborations based on transboundary water contexts.
63
37
Knowledge sharing
Exchange knowledge about water goals ahead of assessments by building trust and relationships between Indigenous Nations, government agencies, and proponents.
80
47
Rights and culture
Appreciate impacts to rights and culture for Indigenous Peoples downstream of development projects.
70
36
Screening projects
Determine what projects should undergo assessments and be approved based on the ability of a watershed to support new developments while achieving environmental and cultural water goals.
24
7
Systems thinking
Include greater appreciation of social-ecological systems in assessments in watersheds. Social-ecological systems describe linked human systems and ecosystems with resources, resource users, and governance.
67
33
Tiering
Set ecological and cultural goals at the watershed level and use that information to inform plans, policies, and programs, and then apply these goals to project-level assessments that could then inform regional water supply and allocation strategies (project to watershed to region and vice-versa).
60
27
Water Relationships
Understand how communities relate to and steward water systems, both through tangible (e.g., fishing and recreation) and intangible (e.g., connection to nature) expressions.
67
37
Water standards
Develop water standards based on evaluating the sensitivity, importance, and sacredness of water bodies.
33
18
These emergent thematic codes from interviews were created during the open coding process and include themes from phases one and two. The interview percentages refer to the percent of interviews that spoke to this recommendation and the number of thematic codes are the total number of lines of text and text blocks coded to recommendations
The development of Regional Readiness emerged from discussion of themes about water councils, change, and consensus, which are inspired by contributors’ reflections on exemplary cases.
Exemplary cases described by participants that informed the grounded theory are discussed in this paragraph and in more detail in Table 4. Athabasca Chipewyan and Mikisew Cree undertook a process to investigate flow alteration in the Athabasca River from the oil sands, climate change, and declining flows and set Aboriginal Base Flow and Extreme Flow thresholds, which have been referenced within Teck Frontier’s canceled impact assessment and Mikisew’s own assessment process (Candler et al. 2010, 2015). The Treaty #3 (western Ontario and southeastern Manitoba) Women’s and Grandmother’s Councils created a Nibi Declaration to assert water relationships that Anishinaabe citizens and others living within the territory should have and this is beginning to be applied to protect water in policy and development decision-making (Craft and King 2021; Grand Council Treaty #3 2023). The Slave Watershed Environmental Effects Program (SWEEP) was part of Canadian Water Network’s Collaborative Watershed Research Consortium to develop cumulative effect monitoring programs across Canada and this program brought together Indigenous and western science about water quantity and quality change to build evidence for impact assessments (Canadian Water Network 2015, 2016). The Wood Buffalo National Park Strategic Assessment led to an Action Plan to protect environmental and cultural flows in the Peace-Athabasca Delta (Parks Canada 2018, 2019). The Wolastoq ELOHA is an ongoing process in New Brunswick where there is discussion and quantification of region-wide ecosystem and societal needs that depend on water flows and quality to inform the operation of the Mactaquac Hydroelectric Dam (Monk et al. 2017). Lastly, the Yinka Dene (Nadleh Whut’en and Stellat’en) have created a Surface Water Management Policy and Water Quality Standards to classify waterways in their territory in British Columbia and offer duty to consult steps that must be met ahead of assessments like the Blackwater Gold Project (Yinka Dene ‘Uza’hné 2016a, 2016b). These cases are mentioned in the next section.
Table 4
Description of exemplary cases across Canada that include or relate to environmental and cultural flows and water considerations, their relationship to impact assessment, and outcomes
Title of Process
Actors Involved
Description of the Process
Relationship to Impact Assessment
Outcomes
Source
As Long as the River Flows: Athabasca River Knowledge, Use, and Change
Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation, and the Firelight Group
They investigated river alteration from oil sands development, climate change, and declining flows. With interviews with Elders, knowledge holders, and leadership they measured navigability, practice of rights, use and occupation, and knowledge transmission about water. They identified an Aboriginal Base Flow (water levels sufficient to fully practice rights and ensure access) and Aboriginal Extreme Flow (low water level below which disruption to rights and way of life would result).
These thresholds have been referenced within the Teck Frontier Oil Sands impact assessment in Alberta and part of Mikisew Cree’s own culture and rights assessment of the Teck Frontier Project called Wîyôw’tan’kitaskino (Our Land is Rich) that highlighted key valued components: Way of Life, Harvesting Rights, and Governance and Stewardship
The Frontier Project ultimately did not proceed and was terminated. The study recommended that the Crown “sit with” both Nations to establish an Athabasca River Consultation and Accommodation Framework to govern future water management.
Treaty #3 Women’s and Grandmother’s Councils, University collaborators, Territorial Planning Unit
This Declaration was established for formal recognition of governance processes in water-related policy and decision-making processes across Treaty Three. Information came from engagement sessions, feedback, surveys, and thematic content analysis, and Anishinaabe visual thematic organization. Four key pillars emerged: Governance, Ceremony, Community-Based Monitoring, and Outreach/Education. This Declaration outlines water relationships that Anishinaabe citizens and others living within the territory could and should have.
A Territorial Planning Unit works with Treaty Three Leadership to protect the lands, waters, and resources and evaluate resource developments following the Nibi Declaration.
The Grand Council Treaty #3 Territorial Planning Unit in Manitoba and Ontario is applying the Anishinaabe Nibi Inakonigaawin (water law principles) to protect water in policy and development decision-making.
Slave Watershed Environmental Effects Program (SWEEP)
Canada Water Network, Slave River and Delta Partnership, University of Saskatchewan, and Government of Northwest Territories Environment and Natural Resources
This process was one of the six nodes of the Canada Water Network’s Collaborative Watershed Research Consortium. SWEEP was a community-based program to develop a cumulative monitoring framework by bringing together Indigenous Knowledge and western science indicators. The goal was to understand changes to fish health, wildlife abundance, water quality and quantity, and ice dynamics in the Slave River Delta. A Two-Eye Seeing approach, sharing circles, interviews, and a Bayesian Belief Network were applied to assess changes.
Built cumulative effects monitoring data to be used within environmental impact assessments and cumulative effects assessments for the Slave River.
The community-based cumulative effects monitoring program supported Elders and youth in creating data and procedures that are significant for water governance in Canada. This program can help to set objectives and establish triggers for effects on fish, wildlife, water, and livelihoods in transboundary agreements between the Peace, Athabasca, and Slave watersheds.
The Action Plan and Strategic Environmental Assessment for Wood Buffalo National Park
Parks Canada, UNESCO, BC Hydro, Indigenous partners, and governments of Alberta, British Columbia and Northwest Territories
This process was spurred by remarks from Indigenous Nations to UNESCO that the Peace-Athabasca Delta and Wood Buffalo National Park were not being correctly managed as a world heritage site, in part because of the effects of the Site C and Bennett Dams in the Peace River and oil and gas development in the Athabasca watershed. Studies identified hydro-ecological endpoints and documenting Indigenous uses through interviews.
Environmental and cultural flows objectives were defined in the Action Plan after the Strategic Assessment for the Wood Buffalo National Park. The objectives included ecologic and hydrologic integrity, the exercise of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, and informed decision-making (building baseline knowledge).
As part of and following the strategic assessment, information was gathered and considered through a shared water governance framework and Action Plan that support the assessment of policies, plans, and programs related to environmental and cultural flow requirements in the Peace-Athabasca Delta.
Wolastoq Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA) Process for Mactaquac Dam
University of New Brunswick, Canadian Rivers Institute, St. John River Society, New Brunswick Power
They employed the Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration approach to have workshops and discuss ecosystems that depend on water (monitor nutrient and flow changes at six river habitats) and society’s activities, uses, and feelings towards water (surveys and online mapping software to create a story map).
Evidence for the impact assessment of the decommissioning of the Mactaquac Dam, but the proponent (NB Power) and province ultimately decided to refurbish the dam instead.
The framework for water connections will help in setting water quality levels, future monitoring, management actions, and target flow needs. They continue to test the connections across the watershed and identify flow and water quality needs.
Yinka Dene ‘Uza’hné Surface Water Management Policy) and the Yinka Dene ‘Uza’hné Guide to Surface Water Quality Standard
Yinka Dene (Nadleh Whut’en and Stellat’en), Yinka Dene Environmental Staff and Consultants, Project Proponents
Yinka Dene and consultants created a water management policy and surface water quality standards to classify waterways and inform waterway capacities for supporting further development. They set Class I (Waters of high cultural and ecological importance), II (Sensitive waters), and III (Typical waters and waterways) based on measuring and calculating water quality standards and then qualifying standards based on narrative water management objectives: unique cultural uses, special assemblages, at-risk species, and traditional resource uses.
This process was used in the assessment of the Blackwater Gold Project in British Columbia by Carrier Sekani First Nations whose Water Law included the Yinka Dene ‘Uza’hné process. Here, project proponents must complete 11 steps laid out in these documents in consultation with Yinka Dene environmental staff to complete the Duty Consult requirement of impact assessments.
Yinka Dene ‘Uza’hné guidelines were used to influence decision making concerning the treatment of effluent discharge and limits from ecological and cultural indicators, design and implement monitoring programs that support effective environmental management and create reclamation and closure plans.
These examples are key cases mentioned by contributors
Steps Toward Regional Readiness
Water Councils – Create regional visions, objectives, and rules for ecosystem, culture, and rights-based needs with a dedicated advisory council
A dedicated forum for regional water conversations prior to developments is necessary for greater knowledge sharing and for commitments to build relationships for greater free, prior, and informed consent in assessment. This is generally true for all the exemplary cases, and 16 contributors spoke to this theme. For example, the Action Plan for Wood Buffalo National Park was created with Parks Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, UNESCO, BC Hydro, Indigenous Nations, Alberta, British Columbia and Northwest Territories to define environmental and cultural flow requirement in the Peace-Athabasca Delta (Table 4). Consultants in British Columbia described how practitioners and proponents could engage if decision-making tables were able to set the tone: “If you’re able to have a regional working group that was able to proactively pull together data and come up with their goals around cultural and environmental flows and we knew that upfront, we could work with that group (Rights holders or stakeholders).” Similarly, a regulator in Ontario remarked:
We have an opportunity to set in place the processes, have discussions about the objectives that we want for aquatic ecosystems and our economy, and how we want to administer our authorities for enabling that and aligning our decisions towards achieving those objectives.
If this occurs, contributors mentioned that dedicated and early regional water conversations about visions for allocating water for the environment, people, and rights could be an opportunity for more inclusive and democratic assessments. Evaluating the degree to which regions have a dedicated water forum with diverse actors is necessary to protect environmental and cultural flows as part of impact assessments.
Water Change – Describe hydrologic alteration and water quality change through regional data, understandings, and relationships to water
Regional Readiness requires an appreciation of water change and interrelationships between ecosystems and people – both valued components and relationships – and joint consideration of environmental and cultural water. Twenty-three contributors spoke to this theme and the Wolastoq, Athabasca River (Athabasca Chipewyan and Mikisew Cree), and Slave River cases in particular describe research processes to establish relationships between water, people, and ecosystems, including ecosystem needs and water quality/quantity interactions; use, activities, and feelings towards water; navigability, practice of rights, use and occupation, and transmission of knowledge about water (Table 4). The challenge, as described by a researcher and practitioner in Nova Scotia, is that:
We need to attend to the concept of impacts as something that is experienced by communities in a complex social-ecological way. When you alter the water chemistry of a river system because of a mine, traditional impact assessment says, “Okay, what’s the impact?” So, we do baseline studies and then we look and say, “Well, how much cesium is in the water before and after?” One of the hardest things for the impact assessment process to embrace has been the testimony of stakeholders, Indigenous and non, to say, “Well, you’re changing a water system, and this is not simply about biochemistry.”
A water system is composed of relationships that can be represented by both natural and social sciences and Indigenous Knowledge. A policy advisor in British Columbia describes this: “We look at the full suite of water indicators: the spiritual, intellectual, biophysical, financial, economic, emotional, and social. I think that is where the power is [of environmental and cultural flows processes].” These indicators represent an understanding of ecosystem and peoples’ relationships to water, which is similar to the Nibi Declaration of Treaty #3 that describes how people should relate to the watershed (Grand Council Treaty #3 2023). There is a need to have a full understanding of water change and relationships to water ahead of, and as part of, assessments.
Water Consensus –Build consensus on the cultural and ecological significance and sensitivity of water bodies to inform development and assessment processes
Building consensus through management objectives and guidelines based on the cultural and ecological significance of waterbodies is crucial to inform assessments and development decisions. This was identified by twelve contributors, and the Yinka Dene Water Management Guidelines are a good example of how Class I (waters of high cultural and ecological importance), II (sensitive waters), and III (typical waters and waterways) were determined to inform assessments (Table 4). This includes, for example, that proponents must work with Nadleh Whut’en and Stellat’en environmental staff to set out steps of water management plans, set the ecological and cultural sensitivity of water bodies under development, evaluate water standards against sensitivity, establish water quality and discharge limits consistent with standards, and develop monitoring and adaptive management programs (Yinka Dene ‘Uza’hné, 2016a). A practitioner in British Columbia described how impact assessments could consider broader water goals/objectives:
Proponents would know at the outset: this is the framework that I need to work under, these are the water bodies that are off limits, this is the goal for this water body over time. We need to design our project in a way that fits within that continuous improvement framework.
This goal is to emphasize that water’s cultural significance matters. It includes an understanding that cultural uses connected to water present unique risk exposure pathways for Indigenous Peoples when water is mismanaged. This includes the value of water allocated to an area for spiritual, stewardship, and rights-based practices or protected ecosystems, what existing cumulative stresses (water withdrawal, drainage, and pollution) need to be mitigated or eliminated, and if water should be reserved for environmental and cultural purposes in advance of assessments.
Integrating Environmental-Cultural Flows into Higher-Level Assessment (Regional/Strategic)
If water-related strategic-regional assessments are designed to explicitly consider environmental and cultural flows (as one of several pre-planning considerations) regionally, different water values based on ecosystem, culture, and rights-based needs can be scoped in (see Table 5). This is articulated by an environmental regulator in Alberta:
My view of a regional assessment would be to assess the degree to which the bigger picture is being looked at and whether those values, concerns, thresholds, and indicators have been set or not and if they can be. The response on the regulatory side is going to lag behind and that’s a problem. We recommend that a regional vision is established before those impacts are allowed to occur. I do not see the [current] regional impact assessments doing that.
Table 5
Applications of environmental andcultural flows at different stages of project-level impact assessment based on contributors’ ideas and assuming use of regional-strategic assessments
Stage
Application of Environmental and Cultural Flows
Quotes and Ideas
Pre-Project Planning
Opportunity for proponents/consultants to know how regional actors have already classified the watershed and identified what parts are capable of supporting and are otherwise prepared for development. Valued components and relationships can be collaboratively developed based on multiple impacts to water systems.
“Federal environmental impact assessment would then look at that framework and say, ‘where does this project fit within that set of values that was laid out?’” (regulator in Alberta).
Screening and Scoping
New context to screen in, scope projects, and develop baseline information based on how projects are situated within diverse and better understandings of water.
“If we think of environmental-cultural flows as values-based, we can start to open our hearts, minds, intellect, and emotions to embracing different meanings of water and that will allow more comprehensive, fulsome, deeper impact assessments” (policy advisor in British Columbia).
Impact Assessment
Impacts on connections between water, ecosystems, and people are evaluated based on scenarios, participatory approaches, and local and Indigenous Knowledge and science.
“There is a broader lens on what we would choose as our valued environmental components, but also our valued environmental relationships or our valued cultural relationships” (anonymous contributor).
Significance and Follow-Up
Impacts’ significance can be assessed considering how ready water bodies and their actors are for developments. Impacts will need to be managed in waterways to ensure relationships of different actors to ecosystems are maintained.
“If you were to have a region that said, ‘we are laying out our values and our proposed use of water as a resource to protect downstream users,’ then the impact assessment would need to respect that in their decision statement and their determination of significance” (regulator in Alberta).
Environmental and cultural flow initiatives can provide guidance for ecosystem, cultural, and rights-based needs at a higher-level of assessment to inform individual developments.
Discussion
In summary, to improve impact assessments and link watershed planning, regional assessment and impact assessments, the authors, informed by interviews with practitioners and policy advisors, argue for greater consideration of environmental and cultural flows and water across scales. To do this requires knowledge sharing and collaboration about regional water goals; appreciation of Indigenous water stewardship and rights-based needs; implementation of guidance related to the determination of environmental and cultural water requirements based on western and Indigenous science-informed baseline data; and evaluation of the cumulative effects of on-going water abstraction, drainage, pollution, and climate change. We propose a framework to prepare regional actors to act in the interests of water users, ecosystems, and rights ahead of impact assessment based on the three Cs: water councils, water change, and water consensus. Key questions for practitioners for Regional Readiness to protect environmental and cultural water are described in Table 6 based on a summary of this study, relevant literature, and the co-authors’ ideas.
Table 6
Key questions to assess Regional Readiness based on whether there has been collaborative attention to set water aside for the environment, culture, and rights through the three Cs: water councils, water change, and water consensus
Water Councils
Water Change
Water Consensus
1. Is there open and collaborative regional deliberation and enhancement of understanding through an advisory group or dedicated engagement and learning structure?
1. Have people’s lived experiences (Indigenous and local knowledge) been documented in relation to wet and dry years and changes in water quality?
1. Has the importance or value (spiritual, rights-based, ecological) of different water bodies been discussed?
2. Have there been opportunities to resolve or reconcile existing conflict between watershed actors potentially through mediation and self-reflection?
2. Have indicators been set that represent the environmental and cultural health of water based on quantitative and qualitative data?
2. Has the current sensitivity of water bodies been determined based on cumulative stressors?
3. Are meetings dedicated in that they occur consistently, have high attendance by all parties, and have government support?
3. Have connections to the past been explored to understand relationships to historic water supply and management and whether those priorities are still relevant?
3. Has the viability of water bodies been determined based on sensitivity and resilience to change?
4. Have watershed data been proactively synthesized and has there been adequate respectful knowledge sharing and translation? Has data been provided freely and unaltered to all impacted communities?
4. Do regional actors in the advisory group reflect on and understand their role(s) in maintaining a regional water environment?
4. Have objectives and/or guidelines for water bodies been set?
5. Have there been discussions about different water visions and goals for the future and has some consensus been attempted or reached?
5. Have environmental andcultural flow/water connections and related Indigenous, Treaty and Inherent Rights been accounted for and adhered to in assessment process (e.g., a requirement for use of environmental and cultural indicators in evaluation of applications for water licences)?
5. Are objectives/guidelines updated based on Indigenous governance, regional, and national goals and obligations (e.g., Canadian conservation or climate goals, UNDRIP and Sustainable Development Goals)?
Challenges to Protecting Environmental and Cultural Flows within Canadian Laws, Policies, Programs, and Impact Assessments section
There has been a moderate increase in the uptake of environmental, but not cultural, flows principles in the last decade in laws, policies, and impact assessment practice in Canada, as in other countries. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States, for example, include recognition of environmental flows in their water acts (Harwood et al. 2017). In Canada, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, and Alberta included attention to environmental flows in their water acts and policies. This is likely a result of groundwater preservation for daily use by farmers in Prince Edward Island (PEI Department of Fisheries and Environment and Environment Canada 1996); a water strategy to promote water sustainability and collaboration with Indigenous Nations in British Columbia (Joe et al. 2017); and water licence overallocation, drought, and protection of the aquatic environment by the Minister of Environment in Alberta (Bjornlund et al. 2013; Horbulyk 2017; Berthot et al. 2021). In Canadian impact assessments, cultural flows receive little attention and environmental flows processes and management frameworks are largely done retroactively after project completion. Aside from some notable cases of attention to environmental flows in impact assessment internationally (Russia, China, and Mongolia (Simonov et al. 2019); Uganda (O’Brien et al. 2020); Ethiopia (McCartney et al. 2010); Pakistan (Brown et al. 2019); Australia (Jackson et al. 2014); and the European Union (Acreman et al. 2009)), this is similar to most countries that appear to finish impact assessments without proactive consideration of environmental or cultural flows (Brown et al. 2019).
In this study, contributors identified challenges to protecting downstream ecosystems and communities in impact assessments, including scoping disagreements, inattention to cumulative effects and a lack of data, and coordination between governments across jurisdictions. Well-known challenges to implementing environmental flows (Wineland et al. 2022; Dourado et al. 2023) and cultural flows (Morgan 2012; Taylor et al. 2020) processes to protect downstream ecosystems and communities are a lack of legislation and regulatory frameworks and a lack of hydrologic gauging data and fish habitat and spawning, water quality, livelihood, and rights-based information. Government initiatives to protect environmental and cultural water could be especially useful if they also encouraged effective collaborative efforts by proponents and communities (Candler et al. 2015; Yinka Dene ‘Uza’hné, 2016a). Taken together, Canada should look to its own jurisdictions (such as British Columbia) and other countries that have successfully adopted environmental and/or cultural flows in legislation, regulatory frameworks, or through the effort of proponents and communities in assessments.
Environmental and Cultural Flows as an Asset to Impact Assessment and Pre-Planning
To our knowledge, impact assessment and water management do not usually consider an idea of readiness. The one exception we are aware of is the Mackenzie Gas Project in which the joint review panel included “cumulative impact management and preparedness” in one of its five core criteria categories for evaluating the project as proposed in light of alternatives centred on pipeline throughput (MGPJRP 2009, p. 7). Our idea of preparedness is slightly different in that it is about the capability of regional actors to represent ecosystems and riparian communities in water-related impact assessments and development decisions.
One step of Regional Readiness refers to dedicated water advisory councils with diverse actors (e.g., government, Indigenous Nations, agricultural producers, non-profits, municipalities) to democratize water governance during preparations for impact assessments or other water-related decision-making (Sultana 2018). Ultimately, water councils are about creating a space where different perspectives can be shared to help pluralize ideas and decision-making (Arsenault et al. 2018; Wilson and Inkster 2018; Hania and Graben 2020). While there are many knowledge-sharing approaches (Alexander et al. 2019, 2021), such as Etuaptamuk (Wright et al. 2019; Reid et al. 2021), two-row wampum (Hill and Coleman 2019), and braiding (Kimmerer 2013; Jimmy et al. 2019), dedicated water advisory councils could allow for the emergence of new, context-specific knowledge-sharing approaches (Gibson et al. 2020). To realize this space, there could be an effort towards establishing the legitimacy (trust and public confidence) and organizational capacity (e.g., human, institution, financial, and physical resources) of councils (O’Donnell and Garrick 2017).
Another step is attention to water change and determining how to maintain a regional water environment. Holistic environmental flow frameworks (e.g., Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration, Building Block Methodology, Downstream Response to Imposed Flow Transformations) have been used to identify the effect of hydrologic change (Poff et al. 2010; Tharme, 2003), and there is also opportunity for new conceptual and scientific approaches. Diver et al. (2019, p. 400, 403, 405) describe a “web of relations” between nature and people in which there is a multi-directional “flow of benefits and mutual responsibilities” and a need to maintain these connections by reframing governance around “reciprocal relations”. Similarly, many Indigenous scholars, such as McGregor (2018, p.7), speak to the idea of “all our relations” asserted through Indigenous Water Laws and Declarations (Craft and King 2021). The concept of water change through relationships is essentially about “hydrosocial multiplicity (many uses of water) to acknowledge the need to re-affirm Indigenous laws, customs, epistemologies, and ontologies about water” (Wilson and Inkster 2018, p. 530). This is also about a means to collaboratively define a baseline and valued components based on areas of potential concern for dependencies between different types of flow (groundwater low flows, recessional flows, overbank flows, within-bank flows), water quality, wildlife, people, and rights (Douglas et al. 2019). However, defining a baseline is challenging because of a need to consider pre-settler conditions, current conditions, and future cumulative change and non-stationarity (hydrologic mean and variance change over time with climate change) (Noble 2021; St-Hilaire et al. 2021). Determining a baseline for environmental and cultural water requirements will, therefore, need to be highly democratized as well as water body and community-specific.
Lastly, the final element is building water consensus through determining objectives for different waterbodies ahead of development and assessment. Through this process, the sensitivity of different parts of the watershed can be determined in the pre-planning phase by communities and regional decision-making tables reflecting on the watershed’s baseline, stressors, and deficiencies in information and data (WWF-Canada 2017, 2020). Historically, watersheds have had information on hydrology (Ouellet Dallaire et al. 2020), but we call for effort to fill gaps and linkages between hydrological (peak flows, baseflows, water scarcity), ecological (fish, invertebrates, water quality, sediment flux) (Armanini et al. 2013; Trubilowicz et al. 2013), and social (rights, livelihoods) information (Jackson et al. 2012; Linton and Budds 2014). The World Wildlife Fund has helped Canada move in this direction by evaluating and modeling the stress of Canada’s 167 sub-watersheds based on hydrologic (flow, water scarcity), ecological (water quality, benthic invertebrates, stressors, habitat loss, invasive species, and habitat fragmentation), and climate rankings (WWF-Canada 2017). They found that 53 of 167 sub-watersheds are highly stressed (WWF-Canada, 2017). While this information is essential to build the capacity for Regional Readiness, there is no national synthesis about water justice information, such as losses to livelihoods, cultural practices, and Treaty and Inherent Rights because of hydrologic alteration, climate change, and pollutants (McGregor 2018; Robison et al. 2018). Having this information could help determine if watersheds already have (based on treaties, non-abrogated rights, etc.) and/or should have an ecological or Indigenous water reserve to establish environmental or cultural water as a prior right ahead of consumptive water use and to protect water quality (Horne et al. 2017).
Implementation and Practice of Environmental and Cultural Flows through Regional Readiness in Different Levels of Impact Assessment
Evaluating Regional Readiness could offer an easier way to include systems thinking in regional, strategic, and project-level assessments through collaborative attention to environmental and cultural flows. Noble et al. (2019) mention that a strategic or regional-strategic assessment will fail, for example, if it is “disconnected from larger formal systems of participatory and integrated policy, planning, and development decision-making” (p. 344). Similarly, Ehrlich (2021) says that project-level impact assessments need greater evidence of systems thinking through the assessment of project-level valued components and cumulative impacts from other projects across regional and strategic scales (tiering; Arts et al. 2011). However, one key challenge is in the word “system” and understanding when, how, and by whom the system was characterized. Environmental and cultural flows offer a water-centric lens to evaluate if a system has been characterized through diverse water sensibilities (goals and relationships) (Jimmy et al. 2019). To facilitate the process described in this paper, we recommend that the new Canada Water Agency explore the idea of Regional Readiness as potential area for collaborative emphasis between different levels of impact assessment.
Conclusion
In our study, we sought to develop a process to describe how to enable greater and more effective inclusion of regional communities and ecosystems in impact assessments within watersheds. To accomplish this, we examined the nexus at the synthesis of environmental and cultural flows, impact assessment, and collaboration in the Canadian context by speaking with practitioners, policy advisors, regulators, researchers, and reviewers. What emerged was potential required elements (water councils, water change, and water consensus) for inclusive systems understanding before and/or in the design and implementation of assessment processes in watersheds. We defined this as Regional Readiness, which was inspired by contributors’ reflections on collaborative attention to environmental and cultural flows. To protect environmental and cultural water in impact assessment requires collaboration and knowledge sharing about regional water goals, assertion of Indigenous water rights, determination of environmental and cultural water requirements based on agreed-upon baseline data and valued ecosystem components, and evaluation of the cumulative effects of on-going water withdrawal, degradation, and climate change. Focusing on building Regional Readiness through processes like environmental and cultural flows before development could help in making greater strides towards sustainability and democratic water governance.
We would like to thank the Government of Canada for the Doctoral Vanier Graduate Scholarship (#475934) that supported this research.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Alexander SM, Nanayakkara L, Lloren JI et al. (2021) Bridging Indigenous and Western sciences in freshwater research, monitoring, and management in Canada. Ecol Solut Evid 2:1–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/2688-8319.12085CrossRef
Alexander SM, Provencher JF, Henri DA et al. (2019) Bridging Indigenous and science-based knowledge in coastal and marine research, monitoring, and management in Canada. Environ Evid 8:1–24. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13750-019-0181-3CrossRef
Anderson EP, Jackson S, Tharme RE, et al (2019) Understanding rivers and their social relations: A critical step to advance environmental water management. WIREs Water 6:. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1381
Andrews EJ, Reed MG, Jardine TD, Steelman TA (2018) Damming knowledge flows: POWER as a constraint on knowledge pluralism in river flow decision-making in the Saskatchewan River Delta. Soc Nat Resour 31:892–907. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2018.1451582CrossRef
Armanini DG, Monk WA, Carter L et al. (2013) Towards generalised reference condition models for environmental assessment: a case study on rivers in Atlantic Canada. Environ Monit Assess 185:6247–6259. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-3021-2CrossRef
Arsenault R, Bourassa C, Diver S et al. (2019) Including Indigenous knowledge systems in environmental assessments: Restructuring the process. Glob Environ Polit 19:120–132. https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00519CrossRef
Arsenault R, Diver S, McGregor D, et al. (2018) Shifting the framework of Canadian water governance through Indigenous research methods: Acknowledging the past with an eye on the future. Water (Switzerland) 10:. https://doi.org/10.3390/w10010049
Arthington AH, Bhaduri A, Bunn SE, et al. (2018) The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on environmental flows. Front Environ Sci 6:. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2018.00045
Arts J, Tomlinson P, Voogd H (2011) Planning in tiers? Tiering as a way of linking SEA and EIA. In: Sadler B, Aschemann R, Dusik J (eds) Handbook of Strategic Environmental Assessment, 1st edn. Earthscan, London, pp 415–433
Baines S (2021) Navigation reconciliation through cultural flows for industrialized free-flowing rivers. University of Saskatchewan Thesis
Barnard-Chumik H, Cappe N, Giang A (2022) Knowledge hierarchy and mechanisms of power in environmental impact assessment: Insights from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project. Can Geogr 66:462–484. https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12758CrossRef
Bergbusch NT, Saunders MD, Kelsey L et al. (2025) A systematic scoping review of the collaborative governance of environmental and cultural flows. Environ Rev 33:1–28. https://doi.org/10.1139/er-2024-0015CrossRef
Berthot L, St-Hilaire A, Caissie D et al(2021) Environmental flow assessment in the context of climate change: A case study in Southern Quebec (Canada). J Water Clim Chang 12:3617–3633. https://doi.org/10.2166/wcc.2021.254CrossRef
Birks M, Mills J (2015) Grounded theory: A practical guide, 2nd edn. Sage
Blakley J, Russell J (2021) International progress in cumulative effects assessment: A review of academic literature 2008–2018. J Environ Plan Manag 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2021.1882408
Braun V, Clarke V (2021) Can I use TA? Should I use TA? Should I not use TA? Comparing reflexive thematic analysis and other pattern-based qualitative analytic approaches. Couns Psychother Res 21:37–47. https://doi.org/10.1002/capr.12360CrossRef
Braun V, Clarke V (2023) Toward good practice in thematic analysis: avoiding common problems and be(com)ing a knowing researcher. Int J Transgender Heal 24:1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2022.2129597CrossRef
Brown C, Zakaria V, Joubert A et al. (2019) Achieving an environmentally sustainable outcome for the Gulpur hydropower project in the Poonch River Mahaseer National Park, Pakistan. Sustain Water Resour Manag 5:611–628. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-018-0227-7CrossRef
Candler C, Gibson G, Malone M, et al. (2015) Wîyôw’tan’kitaskino (Our land is rich): A Mikisew Cree Culture and Rights Assessment for the proposed Teck Frontier Project update
Clogg J, Smith G, Carlson D (2017) Paddling together: Co-governance models for regional cumulative effects management. West Coast Environmental Law, British Columbia
Craft A, King L (2021) Building the Treaty #3 Nibi Declaration using an Anishinaabe methodology of ceremony, language and engagement. Water (Switzerland) 13:. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13040532
Curran D (2019) Indigenous processes of consent: Repoliticizing water governance through legal pluralism. Water (Switzerland) 11:. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11030571
Diver S, Vaughan M, Baker-Médard M, Lukacs H (2019) Recognizing “reciprocal relations” to restore community access to land and water. Int J Commons 13:400–429. https://doi.org/10.18352/ijc.881CrossRef
Douglas MM, Jackson S, Canham CA et al. (2019) Conceptualizing hydro-socio-ecological relationships to enable more integrated and inclusive water allocation planning. One Earth 1:361–373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2019.10.021CrossRef
Dourado GF, Rallings AM, Viers JH (2023) Overcoming persistent challenges in putting environmental flow policy into practice: a systematic review and bibliometric analysis. Environ Res Lett 18. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acc196
Dubé M, Duinker P, Greig L et al. (2013) A framework for assessing cumulative effects in watersheds: an introduction to Canadian case studies. Integr Environ Assess Manag 9:363–369. https://doi.org/10.1002/ieam.1418CrossRef
Duinker PN, Greig LA (2006) The impotence of cumulative effects assessment in Canada: Ailments and ideas for redeployment. Environ Manag 37:153–161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-004-0240-5CrossRef
Eckert LE, XEMŦOLTW– Claxton N, Owens C et al. (2020) Indigenous knowledge and federal environmental assessments in Canada: Applying past lessons to the 2019 Impact Assessment Act. Facets 5:67–90. https://doi.org/10.1139/FACETS-2019-0039CrossRef
Finn M, Jackson S (2011) Protecting Indigenous values in water management: A challenge to conventional environmental flow assessments. Ecosystems 14:1232–1248. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-011-9476-0CrossRef
Foley MM, Mease LA, Martone RG et al. (2017) The challenges and opportunities in cumulative effects assessment. Environ Impact Assess Rev 62:122–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2016.06.008CrossRef
Guest G, Bunce A, Johnson L (2006) How many interviews are enough?: An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field methods 18:59–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903CrossRef
Hackett P, Liu J, Noble B (2018) Human health, development legacies, and cumulative effects: environmental assessments of hydroelectric projects in the Nelson River watershed, Canada. Impact Assess Proj Apprais 36:413–424. https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2018.1487504CrossRef
Hania P, Graben S (2020) Stories and the participation of Indigenous women in natural resource governance. Can J Women Law 32:310–340. https://doi.org/10.3138/CJWL.32.2.03CrossRef
Harwood A, Johnson S, Richler B, et al. (2017) Listen to the river: Lessons from a global review of environmental flow success stories. United Kingdom
Hill RW, Coleman D (2019) The Two Row Wampum-Covenant Chain Tradition as a guide for Indigenous-university research partnerships. Cult Stud ↔ Crit Methodol 19:339–359. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708618809138CrossRef
Horne AC, O’Donnell EL, Tharme RE (2017) Mechanisms to allocate environmental water. In: Horne AC, Webb JA, Stewardson MJ, et al. (eds) Water for the Environment: From Policy and Science to Implementation and Management. Academic Press, pp 361–398
Hunsberger C, Froese S, Hoberg G (2020) Toward ‘good process’ in regulatory reviews: Is Canada’s new system any better than the old? Environ Impact Assess Rev 82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106379
Jackson S (2021) Rivers and their cultural values: Assessing cultural water requirements. In: Wohl E (ed) Oxford Bibliographies in Environmental Science. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jackson S, Finn M, Scheepers K (2014) The use of replacement cost method to assess and manage the impacts of water resource development on Australian indigenous customary economies. J Environ Manag 135:100–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.01.018CrossRef
Jackson SE, Pollino C, Maclean K et al. (2015) Meeting Indigenous peoples’ objectives in environmental flow assessments: case studies from an Australian multi-jurisdictional water sharing initiative. J Hydrol 522:141–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.12.047CrossRef
Jimmy E, Andreotti V, Stein S (2019) Towards braiding. Musagetes, Canada
Kidd J, St-Hilaire A, Caissie D, et al. (2018) NSERC CONNECT Workshop on environmental flows in Canada held in Montreal, Quebec, January 31 to February 1, 2018: Abstracts and proceedings. Montreal, QC
King JM, Brown C (2018) Environmental flow assessments are not realizing their potential as an aid to basin planning. Front Environ Sci 6:. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2018.00113
Kovach M (2011) Epistemology and research: centring Indigenous knowledges. In: Kovach M (ed) Indigenous methodologies: characteristics, conversations, and contexts. University of Toronto Press, pp 76–101
Lajoie-O’Malley A, Bronson K, Blue G (2023) ‘Consent’ as epistemic recognition: indigenous knowledges, Canadian impact assessment, and the colonial liberal democratic order. Soc Stud Sci 53:545–571. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127231177311CrossRef
Leonard K, David-chavez D, Smiles D et al. (2023) Water back: a review centering rematriation and Indigenous water research sovereignty. Water Alter 16:374–428
Linnansaari T, Monk WA, Baird DJ, Curry RA (2013) Review of approaches and methods to assess environmental flows across Canada and internationally. Can Sci Advis Secr VII:75
McCartney M, Alemayehu T, Shiferaw A, Awulachew SB (2010) Evaluation of current and future water resources development in the Lake Tana Basin, Ethiopia. IWMI Res Rep. 2010:1–31
McGregor D (2021) Indigenous knowledge systems in environmental governance in Canada. KULA Knowl Creat Dissem, Preserv Stud 5:1–10. https://doi.org/10.18357/kula.148CrossRef
Moggridge BJ, Thompson RM, Radoll P (2022) Indigenous research methodologies in water management: learning from Australia and New Zealand for application on Kamilaroi country. Wetl Ecol Manag 30:853–868. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-022-09866-4CrossRef
Monk WA, Compson ZG, And DGA, Chaumel AI (2017) Mactaquac Aquatic Ecosystem Study: Proposed holistic environmental flows framework for the Saint John River with a focus on operations at the Mactaquac Generating Station. Canadian Rivers Institute, University of New Brunswick
Morgan M (2012) Cultural flows: Asserting Indigenous rights and interests in the waters of the Murray-Darling River system, Australia. In: Johnston BR, Hiwasaki L, Klaver I, et al. (eds) Water, Cultural Diversity, and Global Environmental Change: Emerging Trends, Sustainable Futures? Springer, pp 453–466
Nishima-Miller J, Hanna KS, Stacey J et al. (2024) Tools for Indigenous-led impact assessment: insights from five case studies. Impact Assess Proj Apprais 42:70–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2024.2306757CrossRef
Noble B, Gibson R, White L et al. (2019) Effectiveness of strategic environmental assessment in Canada under directive-based and informal practice. Impact Assess Proj Apprais 37:344–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2019.1565708CrossRef
Noble BF (2021) Scoping and Baseline Assessment. In: Noble BF (ed) Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment: a Guide to Principles and Practice, 4th edn. Oxford University Press, pp 71–92
Nowlan L (2012) CPR for Canadian rivers - Law to conserve, protect, and restore environmental flows in Canada. J Environ Law Pr 23:237–286
O’Brien GC, Dickens C, Baker C et al. (2020) Sustainable floodplains: Linking e-flows to floodplain management, ecosystems, and livelihoods in the sahel of North Africa. Sustain 12:1–32. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410578CrossRef
O’Donnell EL, Garrick DE (2017) Defining success: A multicriteria approach to guide evaluation and investment. In: Horne AC, Webb JA, Stewardson MJ, et al. (eds) Water for the Environment: From Policy and Science to Implementation and Management, 1st edn. Academic Press, pp 625–644
Ouellet Dallaire C, Lehner B, Creed I (2020) Multidisciplinary classification of canadian river reaches to support the sustainable management of freshwater systems. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 77:326–341. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2018-0284CrossRef
Pahl-Wostl C, Arthington A, Bogardi J et al. (2013) Environmental flows and water governance: managing sustainable water uses. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 5:341–351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2013.06.009CrossRef
Parks Canada (2019) Wood Buffalo National Park World Heritage Site Action Plan
PEI Department of Fisheries and Environment, Environment Canada (1996) Water on Prince Edward Island: Understanding the resource, knowing the issues. PEI
Peters DL, Dibike YB, Shudian J et al. (2023) Effects of climate change on navigability indicators of the Lower Athabasca River, Canada. Water 15:1373. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15071373 AcademicCrossRef
Phare M-A, Simms R, Brandes OM, Miltenberger M (2017) Collaborative consent and British Columbia’s water: Towards watershed co-governance. CIER and Polis Project on Ecological Governance, British Columbia
Poff NL, Richter BD, Arthington AH et al. (2010) The ecological limits of hydrologic alteration (ELOHA): a new framework for developing regional environmental flow standards. Freshw Biol 55:147–170. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2427.2009.02204.xCrossRef
Reid AJ, Eckert LE, Lane JF et al. (2021) “Two-Eyed Seeing”: an Indigenous framework to transform fisheries research and management. Fish Fish 22:243–261. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12516CrossRef
Horbulyk T (2017) Water policy in Canada. In: Renzetti S, Dupont DP (eds) Water policy and governance in Canada, 1st edn. Springer Cham, pp 29–43
Simonov EA, Nikitina OI, Egidarev EG (2019) Freshwater ecosystems versus hydropower development: environmental assessments and conservation measures in the transboundary Amur River basin. Water (Switzerland) 11:. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11081570
Sinclair AJ, Doelle M, Duinker PN (2017) Looking up, down, and sideways: Reconceiving cumulative effects assessment as a mindset. Environ Impact Assess Rev 62:183–194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2016.04.007CrossRef
St-Hilaire A, Ferchichi H, Berthot L, Caissie D (2021) The fate of stationary tools for environmental flow determination in a context of climate change. Water 13:1203CrossRef
Stewardson MJ, Guarino F (2018) Basin-scale environmental water delivery in the Murray-Darling, Australia: a hydrological perspective. Freshw Biol 63:969–985. https://doi.org/10.1111/fwb.13102CrossRef
Taylor LB, Fenemor A, Mihinui R et al. (2020) Ngā Puna Aroha: towards an Indigenous-centred freshwater allocation framework for Aotearoa New Zealand. Aust J Water Resour 25:1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/13241583.2020.1792632CrossRef
Tharme RE (2003) A global perspective on environmental flow assessment: Emerging trends in the development and application of environmental flow methodologies for rivers. River Res Appl 19:397–441. https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.736CrossRef
Trubilowicz JW, Moore RD, Buttle JM (2013) Prediction of stream-flow regime using ecological classification zones. Hydrol Process 27:1935–1944. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9874CrossRef
Udofia A, Noble B, Poelzer G (2017) Meaningful and efficient? Enduring challenges to Aboriginal participation in environmental assessment. Environ Impact Assess Rev 65:164–174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2016.04.008CrossRef
Wenig MM, Kwasniak AJ, Quinn MS (2006) Water under the bridge? The role of instream flow needs (IFNs) in federal and interjurisdictional management of Alberta’s rivers. In: H Epp and Ealey D (ed) Water: Science and Politics. Proceedings of the Conference Held by the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists, Edmonton, Alberta, pp 1–23
Wilson NJ, Inkster J (2018) Respecting water: Indigenous water governance, ontologies, and the politics of kinship on the ground. Environ Plan E Nat Sp 1:. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848618789378
Wineland SM, Bașağaoğlu H, Fleming J et al. (2022) The environmental flows implementation challenge: Insights and recommendations across water-limited systems. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Water 9:1–24. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1565CrossRef
Wright AL, Gabel C, Ballantyne M et al. (2019) Using two-eyed seeing in research with Indigenous people: an integrative review. Int J Qual Methods 18:1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919869695CrossRef
