Water security through community-directed monitoring in the Canadian Columbia Basin: democratizing watershed data

ABSTRACT

The Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Framework (CBWMF) aims to help quantify the impacts of climate change on freshwater sources in the Canadian Columbia Basin. By involving stakeholders and prioritizing monitoring based on scientific and community criteria, the CBWMF provides a localized solution to water management challenges. The framework’s approach enhances sustainability, promotes regional water protection, and enables informed decision-making at various scales. The CBWMF can serve as a model for similar networks in river basins across the globe.

KEYWORDS:

• Monitoring
• community engagement
• network
• framework
• climate
• Columbia Basin

Acknowledgements

Living Lakes Canada would like to acknowledge the contributions of Daniel Schindler and Ian Sharpe.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Stronger BC, Watersheds BC, and the Real Estate Foundation of BC through the Healthy Watersheds Initiative; the Province of BC; the Royal Bank of Canada Tech for Nature; Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster; Columbia Basin Trust; MakeWay; the Vancouver Foundation; the Sitka Foundation; the Slocan Valley Community Legacy Society; the Regional District of Central Kootenay under ReDi funding; the Regional District of East Kootenay ReDi funding; TELUS Friendly Future Foundation; the Columbia Valley Community Foundation; the Schein Foundation; the Ad Meliora Foundation; and ECO Canada Employment Programs Fund.