The Canadian Partnership of the United Nations Decade of Action “Water for Life”

Bob Sandford recognized that Canadians could advance their own understanding of fresh water issues and move more quickly toward positive action by seeing our situation in a global context. Sustainability targets set by the Millennium Declaration of 2000 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 demonstrated a global willingness to address water availability and quality issues at the global level. In was in recognition of the importance of these issues, that the UN General Assembly proclaimed the year 2003 as the International Year of Fresh Water. In recognition of a global water crisis, the UN General Assembly then went on to proclaim the period from 2005 to 2015 as the international decade for action on “Water for Life.” When the United Nations “Water for Life” decade came into formal existence on World Water Day, March 22nd, 2005, Bob Sandford had already organized an initiative in Canada.

Bob Sandford recognized that the UN “Water for Life” Decade presented a huge opportunity to build on the partnerships and successful programming developed during the United Nations International Year of Fresh Water and Wonder of Water initiative in Canada. The objectives of the Canadian Partnership of the United Nations “Water for Life” Decade in Canada were adapted to advance federal, provincial and municipal goals for improving the understanding of the importance of water to our way of life in jurisdictions across Canada.

Through the UN Year of Mountains and UN Year of Fresh Water initiatives, Bob learned that many organizations and agencies in Canada like to think in global terms. One major partner in particular, Global Television, understood the concept. The network offered the Canadian Partnership of the UN Water for Life Decade generous free public service announcement broadcasts NATIONALLY if it could get 10 partners to produce the spots at a standard acceptable for broadcast.

The public announcements produced through the Canadian Partnership of the UN Water for Life Decade began being broadcast  nationally in slots that include prime time all across Canada on the Global Television network. The partners in this initiative include the Provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba, the Canadian Water Network, the University of Lethbridge, the Columbia Basin Trust, Niagara Flapperless Water Conservation Solutions and the City of Toronto. This campaign will continue until mid-2008.

This partnership has demonstrated that a link to the UN makes partners feel they are doing something important for the world by doing something important for Canada. By thinking global and acting locally, we become better Canadians and world citizens.

Another major contribution Bob has made in support of better water conservation and management has been the cultivation of the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy, in which he became involved as Canada’s first representative in 2004.

Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy

The Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy was created in 1996. It is named for Richard Rosenberg, the founder and former Chairman of the Bank of America. Upon Mr. Rosenberg's retirement in 1994, the Bank of America endowed the University of California in his name with resources to help support an invitational biennial water forum for the world's leading water scholars and senior water management practitioners.  The main thrust of these Forums is the resolution of conflict emerging from trans-boundary water issues. The first of these Forums was held in San Francisco, U.S.A.; Barcelona, Spain; Canberra, Australia and Ankara, Turkey.

The principal sponsors of the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy are the University of California and the Bank of America. Local co-sponsors for the 5th Forum included Alberta Environment, Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Water Research, Alberta Irrigation Projects Association, The Banff Centre, The Max Bell Foundation, The Calgary Foundation, the Columbia Basin Trust, Zaragoza EXPO2008 and the United Nations Water for Life Decade initiative in Canada.

Participants in the Forum included 52 scholars and water managers from 24 countries. The theme of the Forum was: “Upland Watershed Management in an Era of Global Climate Change.” The Forum included a two day pre-Forum field trip through the UNESCO Canadian Rockies World Heritage Site to examine modern upland watershed practices, two days of formal presentations and a post-Forum field trip to the Columbia River Basin, which was the subject of a case study at Rosenberg Forum IV held in Ankara, Turkey in 2006. 

A substantial document outlining lessons that Canada and Alberta can learn from the case studies and the discussion that formed the foundation of the Rosenberg Forum in Banff was released in February of 2007. It is expected that these recommendations will shape public policy with respect to water in Canada for years to come.

The Alberta Irrigation Projects Association

“Every Drop Counts”

Video Series

Bob Sandford was very heavily involved in the writing and production of a significant educational program produced by David Hill on behalf of the Alberta Irrigation Projects Association. This program demonstrates, once again, the reach of the UN Water for Life Decade partnership.
The series is quite interesting. Described by world water expert Margaret Catley-Carlson as “the most exciting teaching tool on water to appear in years”, the Teacher’s Guide and its accompanying tools are designed to excite Grade Eight students about the importance of water to our Canadian way of life. 
This guide offers an introduction to three nested and completely integrated learning tools designed to provide all the material elements a teacher will need to teach four to six full Grade Eight class sessions on the topic of fresh water in Alberta. In this kit there are: 
1.      The Hook: A Great Four Episode Television Drama
Four highly engaging video episodes that follow in sequence the adventures of a group of four grade eight students who are encouraged by their teacher to discover more about water, and to develop their own interest in contemporary music, by entering a song-writing contest created in support of the United Nations Water for Life Decade. These videos are done to the highest television broadcast entertainment standards and are designed to fully engage students. The plot of each of these episodes has been carefully designed as an exciting vehicle for learning about how fresh water shapes our way of life. The interaction between the Grade Eight students in each of the video episodes is punctuated by curriculum-based information about water, right from how Earth became a “water planet” to how fresh water ecosystems function and how the availability of water propels agricultural and industrial prosperity in Alberta.
In each of the separate episodes, the students are introduced to experts who offer engaging perspectives on how water shapes the lives of everyone who lives in Alberta and in the Canadian West. Desired learning outcomes are achieved by videos that appear within the larger context of the plot. In each episode there is a “video within a video” information segment that functions as a stand alone teaching tool that can be pulled out of each episode to reinforce curriculum content.
In the first two episodes the students are shown these separate videos by a real-life water expert working in service of the United Nations Water for Life Decade in Canada. In the last two episodes, this content is provided by way of interviews with experts in the field. These include a professional aquatic ecosystem specialist, an expert in Alberta irrigation and farmers who use advanced computer-aided water management and distribution systems to grow food. As the plot develops, so does the song the students are writing.  
2.      The Content: Hard Facts
The information segments in each of the separate “video with a video” DVDs in this kit are designed to be shown after the class has viewed the dramatized story that forms the foundation for the larger plot. This repetition will serve to reinforce key points in the fresh water unit. These visually engaging presentations can also be used to focus on what students can learn from their surroundings, and from science, about how important fresh water is to our way of life. 
3.      A “Go-To” Website for Further Information
Finally, this guide also includes backup information that supports what is presented in each of the video episodes including glossaries of new words, follow-up questions to test content recall and a variety of extension questions. Photocopy-ready worksheets are also included. An interactive website www.everydropcounts.com has also been created as a means to invite further student inquiry and on-going interest in what they can do to ensure that issues of water availability and quality do not limit their future as citizens of Alberta. If you go to this website, you can see the videos, the big concert finale and all the attendant information that forms the teaching guide.
The series was produced by Alberta Irrigation Projects Association in partnership with a number of other agencies including the Alberta Ingenuity, EPCOR, Inside Education and the UN Water for Life Decade.

Collaborative Watershed Management Process

Bob Sandford has been involved in the development and testing of vitally new processes that build on already existing water management successes in the province. The University of Lethbridge is the lead in a partnership with Hydrologics Inc. of Columbia, Maryland, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and the United Nations Water for Decade initiative in a major pilot project aimed at establishing a more effective process for minimizing conflict over water quality, allocation and use issues in Canada. The pilot project, which will test the new public process, will seek to further advance sound water management practices in the South Saskatchewan River Basin. This pilot, which will be called the Collaborative Watershed Management Process, will be initiated in the spring of 2007 and is expected to take two years to complete.

What is different about this pilot is that it combines a range of never before combined process elements all aimed at moving participants in public processes from defending positions to seeking common interests with the aim of optimizing the widest range of needs while minimizing conflict over water resources. The first of these processes, developed by Dr. David Eaton at the University of Texas in Austin, is a new Rapid Dispute Prevention technique that allows participants in public processes to determine common interests at the outset of discussions aimed at new solutions. This video-interview and position-comparison technique has been employed successfully in conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians over use of the Jordan River and by American and Mexican negotiators seeking resolution of longstanding issues over the Rio Grande.

The second innovative component of this process is a highly effective computer assisted negotiation process developed by Dr. Dan Sheer of Hydrologics Inc., an engineering firm based in Maryland that specializes in advanced techniques for the management of water resources. The Hydrologics process, which features a highly interactive, real time simulation process readily available to all participants, has already been applied widely all over the world with particular recent success on the fragile Roanoke River in the United States. The Hydrologics process has been used so successfully in the U.S. that almost 1 in 5 Americans now receive their water from watersheds in which these tools are used.

These two innovative processes will be applied to the further development of the Irrigation District Model with the aim of achieving already established performance measures for appropriate management of the South Saskatchewan River Basin.

The Western Watersheds Climate Research Collaborative

www.wwcrc.ca

Bob Sandford has invested a great deal of time and energy, not just into existing UN Water for Life programming, but also into creating new structures that will help Albertans manage water more effectively as our climate changes. Bob Sandford has been working quietly but purposefully for more than two years with the University of Lethbridge to create the Western Watersheds Climate Research Collaborative.

Projected changes in our climate will affect us in many ways. The timing and extent of rain and snowfall will change, affecting how much water is available to agriculture, industry and to our communities. It will not just be agriculture and industry however that will be affected by a changing climate. There will be impacts also on water storage & hydro-power generation, public infrastructure, forestry, tourism, recreation, real estate, community development, public health and local identity and sense of place.

The Rocky Mountains are the water towers of the Canadian West. Climate impacts on water availability in these mountains will have a profound influence on the economies of all four western provinces. In order to ensure that these and related changes do not limit our social and economic development, it is important to measure with as much exactness as possible what is actually happening to our climate and to understand what the changes mean so that we can adapt successfully to whatever the future might bring.

The not-for-profit Western Watersheds Climate Research Collaborative has been created, in association with the University of Lethbridge, to address these on-going needs. Within this collaborative are many of this country’s most highly respected climate scientists, technology analysts and policy experts.

The mission of this collaborative is to establish a broad scientific basis for understanding and responding to climate related impacts in the Canadian West. In this context it will address fundamental questions related to long term water availability and energy issues; identify and develop practical social, economic and technological mitigations and adaptations; and put into relief public policy options that will create incentives that will encourage positive adaptation to changing climate circumstances.

The goal of this organization is to do practical, directed science; translate that science into intelligible language that decision-makers can understand; put into relief the policy options that emerge from that science and then help municipal and federal governments and major industry sectors choose the right directions to follow in order to reduce risk and enhance our capacity to respond productively as we adapt to the combined impacts of population growth, landscape alteration and climate change.

The Western Watersheds Climate Research Collaborative will provide services in three domains:

1. The WWCRC Scientific Research Network will provide research and interpretation services that will include:

• Building bridges between scientific research outputs and public education
• Public presentations by leading scientists and others aimed to clarify and upgrade public understanding about climate-related threats and opportunities
• The projection of scientifically-defined climate trends into the future with the goal of determining potential short, medium and long-term economic, social, environmental and political implications of the projected climate impacts;
• Directed scientific research that will fill in gaps in our understanding of climate change and its positive and negative impacts on our landscapes, ecosystems, economy and social fabric
• The translation of scientific research conducted around the world into language the average Albertan can understand and decision-makers can act upon
• The creation of a repository of climate science knowledge and perspectives

2. The WWCRC Appropriate Practices & Adaptive Technology Network will find solutions to climate related challenges & opportunities through:

• Identification and development of appropriate practices, technological improvements and innovations for incorporation into community, regional and organizational climate adaptation strategies
• Research into new technologies that can help us adapt and that can be commercialized in ways that will allow Canada to profitably help others address their climate adaptation needs
• Identification of existing and “next step” practices and technological adaptations needed to address climate threats and opportunities particularly as they relate to water, energy and carbon emissions
• Comparison and ranking of best practices and technologies as to their total cost of ownership from a climate adaptation perspective

3. The WWCRC public policy, governance and communications network will assist in the creation of an integrated response to climate issues and opportunities by:

• Identifying laws, policies and regulations that currently govern matters related to climate change adaptation options and opportunities with the goal of determining how incentives can be made to lead to greater adaptation success
• working with diverse others to determine what information, social marketing tools, actions and communications processes are needed to ensure that appropriate adaptation  is possible in both public and private sectors and in society as a whole
• offering expert Rapid Dispute Prevention facilitation in areas of potential or actual conflict over climate-related adaptation
• linking of adaptation responses to improvements in water management and land-use policy in ways that will encourage true sustainability at both community and regional levels

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