Integrated water resource management in Quebec. A primer on the mutations and the fixity of the institutional space
For over ten years, Quebec has been trying to establish a governance model of the resource water that is based, among others, on the so-called integrated management approach that has been internationally recognized and adopted by a number of countries at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. In that context, the province adopted its first National Water Policy (NWP) in 2002, by way of which integrated watershed management became the modus operandi. However, Quebec is nonetheless experiencing difficulties in achieving its objective. Why? A number of factors may be advanced, among them the financial dependence of watershed organizations, the voluntary nature of basin contracts, and the expansion of the territory to manage from a watershed to an integrated water management area encompassing a number of watersheds. This raises the questions of: What, if any, institutions are presently mandated to ensure the organization of integrated water resource management? What institutional adjustments have the actors made, or not, in order to respond to the new requirements that have been introduced over the years? The results of this study show that more than a decade after the adoption of the NWP, the fit between the goals of the state and the institutional mechanisms implemented to achieve these goals is, on average, rather low. Furthermore, the adaptation to new requirements appears to take place without significant resistance, or at least without calling for a major transformation of the existing institutions.