Peeling Back the Pavement: A Blueprint for Reinventing Rainwater Management in Canada’s Communities is part of POLIS' water sustainability handbook series for decision makers, community leaders, and municipal water management staff. It was developed in partnership with the Environmental Law Centre (ELC) at the University of Victoria and is based on the ELC's 2010 report Re-inventing Rainwater Management: A Strategy to Protect Health and Restore Nature in the Captical Region.
The handbook outlines the problems with conventional stormwater management and examines solutions for moving toward sustainability. It provides a comprehensive blueprint that outlines the crucial steps necessary to change the way communities manage and, importantly, govern stormwater. The blueprint describes detailed actions that local and senior levels of government can take to move from the current system of stormwater management to one focused on rainwater as a resource. A main focus is addressing the fragmented responsibility for fresh water across and within jurisdictions—one of the greatest challenges to reinventing rainwater management.
Check out the October 2011 Peeling Back the Pavement webinar here.
Making the Most of the Water We Have is the first book to comprehensively present and apply the water soft path approach. Edited by the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance’s David B. Brooks and Oliver M. Brandes, and environmental consultant Stephen Gurman, it compiles the writings of more than 20 water scientists, policy advisors and analysts, and political ecologists. The publication focuses on detailed Canadian studies, and also takes a global perspective by looking at examples and experiences from around the world. Making the Most of the Water We Have demonstrates that soft path analyses are both analytical and practical, and emphasizes that soft paths are not only conceptually attractive, but can also be economically and politically feasible.
First published in June 2009, the paperback edition was released in March 2011. It is available at Chapters and Amazon, and can be purchased directly from the publisher for 20% off the list price.
- Four book reviews, published in The Environmental Forum, Water International, Critical Policy Studies, and Journal AWWA are provided below as downloadable PDFs.
- This book served as the backbone for an April 2010 Continuing Studies course on Contemporary Issues in Water Management and Protection offered at the University of Victoria. The course information is provided below.
Worth Every Penny: A Primer on Conservation-Oriented Water Pricing provides an overview of conservation-oriented water pricing for decision makers, water utilities and service providers in Canada. It explains how water pricing works, what the benefits are, and how water utilities can implement conservation-oriented water pricing structures as a key tool in the water manager's toolkit. As well, it offers advice on how to address implementation challenges, including how to avoid penalizing low-income families and how to maintain revenue stability for water utilities. Check out the Worth Every Penny webinar here.
POLIS' second report on the water-energy nexus offers Ontario’s first estimate of the large quantities of energy used to pump, treat and heat water and to generate steam. The study reveals that pumping and treating water and wastewater consumes enough energy to light every home in the province. In addition, heating water for activities such as showering and doing laundry was found to be the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the residential and commercial sectors because of the heavy reliance on fossil fuels. As a result of these findings, initiatives to support greater water conservation and efficiency could be a path to realizing future energy savings, to the benefit of municipalities, taxpayers and our environment.
This report highlights the complexity that surrounds source water protection (SWP) activities. It demonstrates that decisions about SWP must involve careful consideration of the many pre-existing land and water management strategies that are likely to influence and affect SWP efforts. The report is not intended to be a comprehensive or exhaustive review of SWP in Canada. Instead, examples selected from all Canadian provinces and territories showcase approaches and demonstrate the wide range of tools being used in different jurisdictions.
Meeting Ontario’s commitment to slow the progression of climate change will take more than changing light-bulbs. It will require all sectors to diligently look for opportunities to reduce waste and increase efficiency. This study, the first of its kind in Canada, suggests a significant untapped opportunity exists for water conservation to reduce energy, save municipal dollars and mitigate Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions:
“The energy savings associated with pumping 20% less water in 2029 could achieve a whopping 34% of the reported energy reduction potential for Ontario municipalities” (Maas 2009).
This seven step "how to" guidebook for British Columbian communities enhances local government capacity to develop and implement effective water conservation plans by summarizing core research on water-wise tools and practices in an easy to use step-by-step guidebook. The guidebook helps municipal water staff and active citizens get started on water conservation planning, and communities who are looking to strengthen existing water conservation plans. This publication is a collaboration between the POLIS Water Sustainability Project and Ministry of Community and Rural Development.
This report describes some of the key mechanisms available to allocate water in times of scarcity, with a particular focus on markets and market mechanisms. It highlights some of the advantages and disadvantages, as well as recent experiences in jurisdictions—such as Alberta—that have begun to include markets formally in their water allocation framework.
This water law report was prepared with the University of Victoria's Environmental Law Center for the Land Trust Alliance of BC. It explains the water management regime in British Columbia in the context of ecosystem health, in order to assist land trusts to evaluate how best to protect instream flows, or the quantity of water in a stream, for conservation.
The Soft Path for Water in a Nutshell provides an overview of the steps involved in soft path planning, illustrates how soft path planning differs from conventional, supply management, and discusses the potential for this innovative approach to develop water sustainability in Canada. Originally published in November 2005, revised with research results in September 2007.
Related Publications and Media:
The Soft Path for Water: A Social approach to the physical problem of achieving sustainable water management by Oliver M Brandes and David Brooks (Friends of the Earth Canada) in HORIZONS, PRI, Volume 9, Number 1, May 2006.
Changing Perspectives – Changing Paradigms: Taking the ‘soft path’ to water sustainability in the Okanagan Basin [abstract] by Oliver M Brandes and Lynn Kriwoken, Canadian Water Resources Journal, Volume 31(2): 75-90, 2006.
This report outlines the steps necessary to create an effective freshwater strategy in Canada, created by the Gordon Water Group of Concerned Scientists and Citizens. The Gordon Water Group was founded in part by three POLIS Research Associates. The Group brings together a number of organisations, including the Water Sustainability Project and scientific expertise on sustainable water management.
Based on three years of research, this handbook provides a practical resource on how individuals, utilities and, most importantly, communities can save water and money. It seeks to inspire and facilitate action, designed for community leaders, water managers and policy makers. It promotes expanded definition of urban water infrastructure, including innovative physical components, water sensitive urban design and conservation programs designed to complement existing water supply networks. The Top Ten represent a suite of actions that can be tailored on a community- by-community basis. This report is available in both French and English in high resolution versions for printing and lower resolution versions for online viewing.
Related Publications and Media:
A New View of Water Security: Thinking Beyond Pipes and Pumps by Oliver M Brandes, Tony Maas and Ellen Reynolds published in Municipal World, February 16, 2007.
Water is the strategic resource of the 21st century - Canada stands “at a watershed” in freshwater management. Attitudes, institutions and policies are changing, but an outdated supply-oriented paradigm still dominates. At a Watershed focuses on the enabling environment that ensures holistic water management is institutionally embedded. Ultimately, the goal is “ecological governance,” where natural ecosystem processes are carefully considered at all levels of decision making, up and down the watershed. Developing water sustainability requires a shift that embeds ecosystem integrity in the fundamental basis of all planning. This approach limits the expansion of supply-oriented infrastructure, addresses cumulative effects at the watershed, and unleashes the full potential of conservation-oriented innovation. The strength of this report lies in the rich mosaic of experiences and examples from around the world where theory and concept inform practice.
Related Publications and Media:
At a Watershed: Ecological Governance and Sustainable Water Management in Canada by Oliver M Brandes, Journal of Environmental Law & Practice, Vol 16(1), November 2005.
This report focuses on identifying benefits as well as the barriers to water Demand Side Management in Canada. The interconnected and interrelated nature of barriers creates a gridlock that resists the adoption of a comprehensive approach to demand management for urban water in Canada. Understanding the interrelationships of these barriers is the first step towards developing a Demand Side Management strategy for urban water provision. The report exaplains why a comprehensive and long-term approach to Demand Side Management is necessary and provides action plans for all levels of government and other stakeholders for implementation.
Related Publications and Media:
Planning for Uncertainty by Oliver M. Brandes and Tony Maas, Municipal World, July 2004.
Urban water management poses many logistical and financial challenges in Canadian communities. By increasing water use efficiency, Demand Side Management can mitigate many of the impacts of human water use on overstretched municipal infrastructure and overstressed aquatic systems. Despite these benefits, Demand Side Management is seriously underutilized in Canada. What the Experts Think draws on interviews with Canadian experts in the field of water resource management and initiates a national network of water demand management practitioners.
The majority of Canadians live in large urban and regional centres, and municipal water use represents a significant portion (12 percent) of overall water withdrawals in Canada. Urban users in Canada use more than twice as much water as their European counterparts, with significant levels of wastage and inefficiency. Such high levels of urban water use have resulted in expensive supply and disposal infrastructure expansions, ecological impacts in developed areas where environmental stresses are already high, and increasing pressure on water treatment facilities to treat all water to drinking quality standards. Demand-side management (DSM) is an alternative (or, more accurately, complementary) approach to increasing supply infrastructure. It involves decreasing the demand for water through a mix of education, technology, pricing reform, regulation and recycling. This report provides insight into water use and supply in Canadian cities and the potential for demand side management.
