Watersheds and Source Protection: Governance, Science, and Health was an Exploratory Workshop funded by a grant from the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia awarded to Principal Investigator Karen Bakker, Geography.

Increasing awareness of risks to water quality and quantity is driving the application of integrated watershed management approaches in many jurisdictions. Innovative approaches include source protection, the ‘multi-barrier’ approach, and risk assessment. Yet many questions remain unanswered. Should we adopt a risk-based watershed management approach to public health aspects of source protection? What new public health monitoring strategies are required? What innovations in water science methodologies are necessary to address source protection? How should science be integrated into source protection policies? What are the implications of source protection for integrating land use and water management? What governance mechanisms, at which scales, are required to for implementation?

This Exploratory Workshop sought to address these and other questions through a two-day meeting of a select group of approximately 20 Canadian and international water experts from diverse disciplines. The organizing committee at the University of British Columbia was made up of senior water experts from engineering, environmental sciences, geography, law, medicine, and planning.

The emphasis of the workshop was on discussion in small groups and plenary sessions. Each participant was expected to author a paper, and to deliver a short presentation addressing aspects of shared discussion questions. To facilitate discussion, participant’s papers were posted on the dedicated workshop website prior to the meeting. A workshop report was produced as the potential basis for the development of large-scale grant application to one or more of Canada’s major academic funding councils.

University of British Columbia Organizing Committee
Karen Bakker, Director of Program on Water Governance, Department of Geography (Chair)
Roger Beckie, Earth & Ocean Sciences
Tony Dorcey, School of Regional & Community Planning
Judy Isaac-Renton, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and BC Centre for Disease Control
Don Mavinic, Department of Civil Engineering
Richard Paisley, Faculty of Law
Hans Schreier, Institute for Resources, Environment, & Sustainability