Geography and Planning
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Browsing Geography and Planning by Subject "Canada"
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Item Adapting to Climate Change Through Source Water Protection: Case Studies from Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada(Scholarship@Western, 2018) Patrick, Robert J.The protection of drinking water sources continues to gain momentum in First Nation communities on the Canadian Prairie. Through the identification of potential threats to drinking water sources communities are taking action to mitigate those threats. This article explores the extent to which climate change has been taken into consideration in recent source water protection planning community exercises. In addition, this article describes how source water protection planning has potential to enhance community adaptation strategies to reduce the impacts of climate change on source water and drinking water systems. Results are based on six case studies from Alberta and Saskatchewan.Item Indigenous Perspectives on Water Security in Saskatchewan, Canada(MDPI, 2020) Awume, Obadiah; Patrick, Robert J.; Baijius, WarrickThe term “water security” continues to gain traction in water resources literature with broad application to human health, water quality, and sustainability of water supply. These western science applications focus almost exclusively on the material value of water for human uses and activities. This paper offers voice to other interpretations of water security based on semi-structured interviews with Indigenous participants representing varied backgrounds and communities from Saskatchewan, a Canadian prairie province. The results indicate that water security from an Indigenous perspective embraces much more than the material value of water. Five themes emerged from this research that speak to a more holistic framing of water security to include water as a life form, water and the spirit world, women as water-keepers, water and human ethics, and water in Indigenous culture. This broader interpretation provides a more nuanced understanding of water security, which serves to enrich the water security narrative while educating western science.Item Lessons Learned Through Community-Engaged Planning(Scholarship@Western, 2017) Patrick, Robert J.; Machial, Laura; Quinney, Kendra; Quinney, LenThis article explores the potential for community-engaged planning to empower Indigenous communities to take ownership of planning and plan-making. We do this through a source water protection planning process with a First Nation community in Alberta, Canada. Access to safe drinking water for many First Nation communities in Canada remains problematic. Source water protection planning seeks to better integrate land and water management to prevent contamination of the drinking water supply. We employ a community-based planning initiative to develop a source water protection plan. While the planning initiative developed a successful drinking water protection plan it also served to built trust between the participants, respected traditional and Western values, as well as empowered the community. Lessons learned from this initiative are shared.Item A Parallel Approach to Water Stewardship Planning: Making Space for Traditional Knowledge and Western-Science(Canadian Institute of Planners and the Association of Canadian University Planning Programs, 2021) Patrick, Robert J.; Baijius, WarrickThe professional practice of planning and the state-controlled mechanisms under which western-science planning operate offer little to improve the lives of Indigenous people and their communities. Arguably, western-science planning along with its many legal tools, collectively reproduce existing colonial relations in the interest of state domination over, and suppression of, Indigenous people. In this paper, we describe a different planning model, one that Viswanathan (2019) refers to as “parallel planning”, wherein Indigenous planning principles are practiced in parallel to western-science planning, with each approach informing, and complementing, the other. Our case example is from the Saskatchewan River Delta wherein Indigenous values nested in traditional knowledge in the land and water are the centrepiece of a planning process supported by the western-science planning framework. Challenges facing this approach will be discussed alongside suggestions on how these challenges may be overcome.Item Planning Around Reserves: Probing the Inclusion of First Nations in Saskatchewan's Watershed Planning Framework(Scholarship@Western, 2019) Baijius, Warrick; Patrick, Robert J.Watershed-based planning in Saskatchewan began in earnest after 2006 under the auspices of the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority. Within a decade, a dozen watershed plans were produced following a planning framework that included technical and watershed resident committees. First Nation communities, or "reserves," exist within these watershed areas. This article probes the inclusion of First Nations in those plans. Using document analysis and keyword search, our analysis explores any spatial relationship that may exist between First Nation inclusion and the amount of reserve land in a watershed. The results of this research show that First Nation inclusion is limited in watershed planning in Saskatchewan. We see opportunity for more effective watershed planning through greater collaboration with First Nations.Item Reclaiming Indigenous Planning as a Pathway to Local Water Security(MDPI, 2019) Patrick, Robert J.; Grant, Kellie; Bharadwaj, LalitaAccess to drinkable water is essential to human life. The consequence of unsafe drinking water can be damaging to communities and catastrophic to human health. Today, one in five First Nation communities in Canada is on a boil water advisory, with some advisories lasting over 10 years. Factors contributing to this problem stretch back to colonial structures and institutional arrangement that reproduce woefully inadequate community drinking water systems. Notwithstanding these challenges, First Nation communities remain diligent, adaptive, and innovative in their e orts to provide drinkable water to their community members. One example is through the practice of source water protection planning. Source water is untreated water from groundwater or surface water that supplies drinking water for human consumption. Source water protection is operationalized through land and water planning activities aimed at reducing the risk of contamination from entering a public drinking water supply. Here, we introduce a source water protection planning process at Muskowekwan First Nation, Treaty 4, Saskatchewan. The planning process followed a community-based participatory approach guided by trust, respect, and reciprocity between community members and university researchers. Community members identified threats to the drinking water source followed by restorative land management actions to reduce those threats. The result of this process produced much more than a planning document but engaged multiple community members in a process of empowerment and self-determination. The process of plan-making produced many unintended results including human–land connectivity, reconnection with the water spirit, as well as the reclaiming of indigenous planning. Source water protection planning may not correct all the current water system inadequacies that exist on many First Nations, but it will empower communities to take action to protect their drinking water sources for future generations as a pathway to local water security.Item “We Don’t Drink the Water Here”: The Reproduction of Undrinkable Water for First Nations in Canada(MDPI, 2019) Baijius, Warrick; Patrick, Robert J.First Nation communities in Canada are disproportionately plagued by undrinkable water and insufficient household sanitation. In addition, water resource management in First Nation communities has long been a technocratic and scientific mission controlled by state-led authorities. There has been limited engagement of First Nations in decision-making around water management and water governance. As such, problems associated with access to drinkable water and household sanitation are commonly positioned as hydrological or environmental problems (flood or drought) to be fixed by technical and engineering solutions. This apolitical reading has been criticized for not addressing the root cause of the First Nation water problem, but instead, of reproducing it. In this paper, an approach using political ecology will tease out key factors contributing to the current water problem in many First Nation communities. Using case study research set in source water protection planning, this paper explains how persistent colonial practices of the state continue to reproduce undrinkable water and insufficient household sanitation. Solutions to this ‘water problem’ require greater attention to First Nations water governance capacity and structures.