Watershed Health and Resilience Indicators
This resource points to a strategic and timely opportunity to link place-based Indigenous Knowledge systems and practices with ecosystem-based monitoring and management at the watershed scale to advance Indigenous leadership, and ecosystem and community health and resilience.
Climate impacts such as drought, heat, wildfire, flood, landslide and extreme weather are impacting watersheds and territories throughout Canada and beyond. These impacts are exacerbating the multiple challenges that communities face at the local scale. More holistic, multi-solving approaches are required to stem the impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and community health, while also upholding the commitments and rights of Indigenous peoples.
Watershed Health and Resilience Indicators: Strengthening Indigenous Co-Governance and Low Carbon Resilience in Canada's Watersheds compares nine western and seven Indigenous-led watershed assessment frameworks to better understand indicators used to evaluate watershed health; it supports the advancement of more holistic and place-based understanding of health and resilience in Canada鈥檚 watersheds. The research illustrates how Indigenous Knowledge systems and co-governance arrangements can support timely place-based strategies for ensuring the resilience of the ecological, cultural, and societal benefits that flow from healthy and resilient watersheds to communities.
These efforts are particularly important to prepare for the impacts of climate change, to develop a shared understanding of key indicators needed to both monitor health and build resilience in watershed eco-cultural systems over time.
This report is part of ACT's Natural Solutions Initiative and is based upon Andrew Palmer鈥檚 research. For more information, including detailed methodology and findings, please refer to his thesis: (2024.)
