Institutional arrangements for assessing and managing cumulative effects on watersheds: Lessons from the Grand River watershed, Ontario, Canada

Relationships between borders, management agencies, and the likelihood of watershed impairment

“…Thus, the problem may not be that each agency feels less inclined to act, but rather that each agency has its own goals and vision for addressing a given managerial concern, creating gridlock within the collective. This has been identified as a challenge in multi-agency settings such as the Colorado River[ 27 ], the Israeli water sector[ 58 ] and urban watersheds in Canada[ 59 ]. At smaller scales, one solution may be found in overarching watershed partnerships that promote interagency coordination and public participation, thereby avoiding ‘silo effects’ between agencies or stakeholder groups[ 14 , 59 , 60 ].…”

“…This has been identified as a challenge in multi-agency settings such as the Colorado River[ 27 ], the Israeli water sector[ 58 ] and urban watersheds in Canada[ 59 ]. At smaller scales, one solution may be found in overarching watershed partnerships that promote interagency coordination and public participation, thereby avoiding ‘silo effects’ between agencies or stakeholder groups[ 14 , 59 , 60 ]. Regardless of the mechanisms involved, our results imply that jurisdictional fragmentation may be a strong determinant of watershed impairment.…”

Assessing the Cumulative Social Effects of Projects: Lessons from Canadian Hydroelectric Development

“…A focused effort on scaling up monitoring and analysis to ecologically significant boundaries, for instance the watershed scale, has helped to advance the technical and scientific capacities required to understand impacts over broad spatial and temporal scales (Ball et al 2013 ; Dubé et al 2013 ; Harker et al 2021 ). While the consistent application of such regional and strategic approaches and effective “tiering” between levels of assessment remain a challenge (Chilima et al 2017 ; White and Noble 2013 ), there is broad acceptance that for biophysical impacts and environmental components ecologically driven, and often regional, spatial scales are necessary for CEA.…”

“…CEA is intended to support project-based decision-making and broader strategic planning by evaluating environmental impacts in combination with other past, present, and foreseeable activities or stressors (Foley et al 2017 ; Jones 2016 ). The implementation of CEA has been critiqued on many fronts including defining and generating the information needed to understand cumulative effects (Cronmiller and Noble 2018 ; Foley et al 2017 ), ensuring the organizational capacity and institutional support for doing CEA (Chilima et al 2017 ; Sheelanere et al 2013 ), and for establishing meaningful connections to decision-making and planning at project-based EA and regional and strategic assessments levels (Arnold et al 2019 ; Noble et al 2017 ).…”

Avaliação de efeitos ambientais cumulativos na Bacia do Alto Paraguai: uma abordagem estratégica

“…As fragilidades político-institucionais da bacia decorrem do processo decisório existente, que acabam formando um tripé sobre os tomadores de decisão, comunidades e motivação dos segmentos que interferem em seu planejamento e gestão (ANA; GEF, PNUMA, 2004), de forma que haja a distanciamento na estrutura de formulação de políticas ambientais na região, onde a sua conservação é normalmente vista como secundária ao desenvolvimento econômico, estando basicamente relacionadas a medidas sistemáticas de adaptação, principalmente na inserção de novos segmentos tecnológicos, como a expansão da fronteira agrícola e de energia hidrelétrica (IORIS, 2013;. Desta maneira, os efeitos cumulativos causados por múltiplos estressores nem sempre são considerados numa escala mais ampla de planejamento, como o de bacia hidrográfica, pois envolve inúmeras agências, estruturas regulatórias e jurisdições que requerem co-criação de novos ou a transformação dos arranjos institucionais existentes (CHILIMA et al, 2017). A situação da BAP não difere deste contexto, pois, grande parte da falta de implementação de instrumentos de gestão dos recursos hídricos decorre de aspectos associados a cultura incipiente sobre a gestão de bacias hidrográficas e o perfil do processo decisório existente (MMA, 2006).…”