A framework for assessing capacity in water governance

Alberta’s water governance is shaped by a complex web of provincial and federal acts and policies, inter-provincial, inter-territorial, and international management and allocation agreements, and local government bylaws. Adding to the intricacy, water governance is a collaborative process with government departments, government mandated agencies and non-governmental organizations involved. A diverse landscape and varying water needs also contribute to the complexity of water management. Recently, Alberta’s water governance has evolved to become more of a collaborative bottom-up rather than top-down approach to management involving a wide range of stakeholders. The direction for water resource management has been driven primarily by the Water for Life strategy. With the shift from a top-down to a bottom-up approach to water management, many questions arise around the capacity of stakeholders to fulfill their roles in this governance structure. In this context, the paper develops a conceptual framework to assess stakeholder capacity in water governance which can be modified to be used in other geographic and resource contexts