NEW STRATEGIES FOR WATER RESOURCE PLANNING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

Abstract

British, Columbia experiences a variety of water and related resource management problems. Provincial strategies and responses often have been reactive, have emphasized allocation and regulation of water rather than long-term management, and frequently have been based on inadequate information. Joint federal-provincial approaches such as the Okanagan Basin planning and implementation exercise have been more comprehensive, but have proven to be administratively cumbersome, overly long to complete, expensive relative to the end product, and difficult to implement.These shortcomings have led British Columbia to develop a new approach which combines the comprehensive perspective of the federal-provincial basin exercises with increased flexibility. Called ’strategic’ planning, this approach is characterized by: (1) being undertaken on a regional basis, usually a watershed or combination of watersheds, (2) integrating water and related resource issues, (3) relying on existing data to facilitate a fast turn-around time, and (4) a commitment to implementation.The ’strategic’ planning approach is a two-tiered one in which strategic plans provide a policy framework for a set of operational activities at a more site-specific basis. The experience with ’strategic’ planning in the Nicola Basin in the southern interior of British Columbia is reviewed with particular reference to surface water resources and fisheries.