South Saskatchewan River Basin (SSRB) – Adaptation to Climate Variability Project

The South Saskatchewan River Basin Adaptation to Climate Variability Project (SSRB Adaptation Project) brought together those who know the region’s water systems best to look for opportunities to further enhance the resiliency of the Bow and Oldman-South Saskatchewan river basins in southern Alberta.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

This initiative built on prior work in the Bow River Basin, and capitalized on the success of that project by bringing together the data, knowledge, information and experience of water resource managers, watershed and community stakeholders, scientists, and environmental advocates to create a robust foundation for improved river management outcomes under a range of climate variability scenarios.

The integrated and collegial process applied to this work enabled participants to work collaboratively and creatively, drawing on each other’s expertise and insights to explore practical options for adapting to climate variability and change. Because of this project and the work that preceded it, there is now a much better, and more integrated, understanding of the river systems, the growth in demand and options for improved water management.

Given the collaborative experience of this initiative, engaged and committed stakeholders have created a strong momentum for positive change and a sense of a shared future. They identified practical and implementable solutions to improve resilience and adapt to current and future water management challenges.

Water is fundamental to community sustainability and growth, and the way water is managed in the South Saskatchewan River Basin (SSRB) will become even more important in the face of changing weather patterns and climate.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

This project was driven by recognition that adaptation to future changes in climate, and other environmental changes, is key to continued prosperity, growth, and sustainability for the environment, economy, and people of Alberta.
Based on tree-ring reconstructions of pre-historic annual streamflow by Dr. David Sauchyn and his team, the variability in flows over the last 100 years is less than naturally has occurred in the basin over the last 600 years.
This initiative builds on and integrates existing data, tools, capacity and knowledge of water users and decision makers to improve the base of knowledge and understanding and to explore options to manage for the range of potential impacts of climate variability throughout the SSRB’s river systems.

Innovation Development

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

Cost-saving (e.g. time, expenses, etc.): With so many participants with different perspective types and backgrounds, and having the engagement and processes to effectively use the collective knowledge and data from the individual participants, time, and therefore money, was likely better spent in terms of data collection and knowledge dissemination than without the engagement process.
Broader economic development (e.g. coherence with other sectors, co-operation across projects): As part of the SSRB Adaptation we were able to work with one of the participant organizations on a complementary project they were working on with a consultant, looking at potential for additional storage and the role of that storage in the Oldman Basin. This project was able to provide valuable insight to their work, and greatly enhanced discussion around the conclusions from both projects and how to move forward based on modelling results

Conditions for Success

Based on our experience, enabling factors for successful engagement are to ensure that there is an agreed upon objective and goals for the work that benefit the group as a whole (e.g., the region or watershed in which they live).
Stakeholders are part of and feel they are part of and agreed upon process and boundaries defining what is included and what is not a part of the work (e.g. sub-committees, working as a group or a model on some significant aspect or component of the project).
Stakeholders have a good working relationship with and trust the facilitators/project team, and that communication and contact with group members is maintained throughout the process.
Transparency with data, the model itself, information, and external communication.

Lessons Learned

Since the SSRB Adaptation Project wrapped up, a similar initiative has started up in the Red Deer River basin, the other sub-watershed of the SSRB. A slightly different approach was done for stakeholder engagement for the Red Deer work based on learnings and differences in how effective the engagement was for the Bow vs. the OSSK basins.
One important lesson we learned was to make sure that stakeholders clearly perceive enough benefits to their interests to hook them after the first meeting. The first meeting needs to grab their attention so they understand the project, want to be engaged in it, and want to come to the next meeting.
The Bow engagement was based on individualized pre-meetings to discuss their interests and goals which brought them together towards common goals for the work preceding the SSRB Adaptation Project.

The OSSK group was engaged through the project team, and took a little longer to persuade them as to the value of the work because the basin had more government and stakeholder controls to begin with. This lesson was learned and helped the project team to better structure the approach for the Red Deer stakeholder engagement.

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