From November 2nd to 5th, 2005, the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association held its annual National Water and Wastewater Convention at the Victoria Conference Centre on the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm/Esquimalt) Peoples. The event offers a comprehensive program that covers nearly all aspects of municipal water and wastewater management. The 2025 convention hosted a record six parallel sessions, with presentations ranging from technical treatment issues, to research, to utility management and planning. POLIS’ Oliver M. Brandes, Rheanne Kroshcinsky, and Kirk Stinchcombe were in attendance and led well-attended sessions on water governance and water conservation and management.
POLIS’ Oliver M. Brandes and Rheanne Kroschinsky at the National Water and Wastewater Conference 2025.
Watershed Governance in British Columbia
Oliver M. Brandes and Rheanne Kroschinsky presented an overview of the state of watershed governance in British Columnia and highlighted innovative reform and governance pathways toward watershed security. They explored the importance of supporting localized and integrated watershed and land use planning and coordinating across various levels of government, as well as tools available under B.C.’s Watershed Sustainability Act that could support a successful transition to more sustainable watershed decision-making in the province. They focused on the potential reform opportunity for a provincial system of watershed boards that might help accelerate and drive co-governance models similar to the Cowichan Watershed Board across the province.
The heart of this presentation was built around a critical comparison of watershed governance approaches taken in other provinces. This comparison, as part of a larger body of emerging POLIS research, informs recommendations for what a provincial watershed board framework could look like in B.C.
This focus on the potential for watershed boards as a solution for fragmented provincial decision-making related to water and watersheds (and to help drive broader provincial commitments to watershed security) would fundamentally advance POLIS’ long-time focus on augmenting more local control and is part of a larger intiative on B.C. watershed governance in partnership with the BC Watershed Security Coalition, BC Water Legacy, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, and Rivershed Soceity of BC.
Approximately 25 participants were in attendance and a lively discussion followed that continued into the break with representatives from municipal governments, provincial agencies, water and wastewater utilities, and researchers and consultants from across Canada.
POLIS’ Oliver M. Brandes presents at the National Water and Wastewater Conference 2025.
Water Conservation and Management in B.C.’s Capital Regional District
Locally and nationally there is strong interest in practical approaches to conservation and effective water management. Longtime POLIS Advisor Kirk Stinchcombe (Managing Director, Econics) delivered two timely presentations at the convention: one on a national approach to water use accounting and the other a case study from Victoria, focused on the Capital Regional District (CRD)’s new draft Water Conservation Plan.
Kirk and co-presenters Colwyn Sunderland (Kerr Wood Leidal) and Kristi Wilson (CRD) explored the draft Water Conservation Plan and profiled local successes in the CRD, as well as practical solutions to advancing conservation, water use accounting, and better water management more broadly.
Towards Standardizing Water Use Accounting Methods in Canada
Kirk Stinchcombe and Colwyn Sunderland also presented on challenges with water use accounting in Canada, which concerns the processes and methods used to measure, analyze, and report on how water is used — typically focused on the urban setting.
Unfortunately, in Canada, there is insufficient authoritative technical guidance or standardization for these analyitical activities. As a result, water service providers, government agencies, and consultants use highly inconsistent methods to calculate and report key metrics. This has major implications for benchmarking, demand management planning, infrastructure planning, and policy-making.
Kirk and Colwyn outlined problems that they observe over and over again. For example, per capita water demand is calculated and reported in very different ways, using different inputs in equations or relying on poor-quality data. This inconsistency has implications because per captia water demand is the key benchmark used across the world to assess how efficiently water is used across communities and across time.
In their presentation, Kirk and Colwyn proposed the creation of a national water use accounting handbook that should be developed with input from government agencies, consultants, industry associations, and others who count on reliable information on water use to ensure good planning.
In our work at POLIS, we support this concept. Both of Kirk’s presentations connected closely with some of the foundational work of the POLIS Water Sustainability Project on water conservation and the water soft path, particularly the series of water management handbooks we published between 2006 and 2011 (see below). The CRD case study that Kirk focused on, for example, represents a practical manifestation of the water soft path approach developed at POLIS over a decade ago.
Further Reading: POLIS Water Management Handbook Series
Thinking Beyond Pipes and Pumps: Top 10 Ways Communities Can Save Water and Money (POLIS, Oct 2006)
The Soft Path for Water in a Nutshell (POLIS, Sept 2007)
Worth Every Penny: A Primer on Conservation-Oriented Water Pricing (POLIS, May 2010)
Peeling Back the Pavement: A Blueprint for Reinventing Rainwater Management in Canada’s Communities (POLIS, Oct 2011)
