Advancing Freshwater Protection

Sustainability Act (WSA) provides This brief is intended for those seeking to better understand— promising tools and potential to and use and support—the options offered by the Water address water challenges and promote Sustainability Act to address local water challenges. [...] It is meant safeguard environmental flows, protect water to support communities and local organizations to inform quality, integrate land and water decision-making, and utilize key provisions in the Water Sustainability Act and and enable innovative approaches to planning encourage the provincial government to follow through on further regulatory development and implementation of the Act. [...] This brief is a companion to the 2015 report Awash With Opportunity: Ensuring the Sustainability of British Columbia’s New Water Law (POLIS, 2015).2 It is part of a bundle of practical resources that the POLIS Water Sustainability Project and associated partners have developed to build community capacity and understanding around the legal and policy tools to advance water sustainability and waters [...] Water Sustainability Plans are region- aspects under the new Act, such as: or watershed-specific plans that can be developed • Selecting the most appropriate method of to prevent or address conflicts between water determining environmental flows in the specific users or between the needs of water users and creeks and rivers within the watershed,10 and environmental flow needs, or to address risks [...] If the majority of water users and Plans have the potential to reorganize power and authorities endorse the planning process and final authority, including co-governance or parallel outcome, Water Sustainability Plans can lead to authority approaches with Indigenous and Crown more durable decisions and reduce the potential governments.