Integrated Water Management: Stakeholders, Territories and Techniques
Integrated water management in Quebec, a topic that has recently been addressed through a public consultation process, has exposed a series of issues that challenge the ability of institutions to cope effectively. The public concerns that have come forth from these consultations are very much the same as those that were raised initially some 30 years earlier (Commission Legendre in 1970, see CEPJE, 1971), more specifically Quebec’s first water basin management experiment involving the Yamaska River Basin Management Plan, an initiative which, among many others in the 1960s and 1970s, was unfortunately lost and forgotten. This article is a retrospective analysis recalling the conditions of the emergence of integrated water management and the difficulties of implementing such a policy. From this analysis, parallels could be drawn with current issues on the ability of institutions to act.