ID: 1933
Presenting Author: Namrata Shrestha
Session: 683 - Watershed Intelligence: Integrating Science and Engagement in Impact Assessments
Status: pending
Watershed intelligence integrates science and local knowledge early in planning to guide growth, protect ecosystem, and manage cumulative effects. TRCA’s watershed plans provide examples of this.
Watershed intelligence is emerging as a critical foundation for integrated land use and infrastructure planning and place making in rapidly urbanizing regions. It combines science, monitoring, modelling, and inclusive engagement to understand cumulative effects at the watershed scale and translate that knowledge into credible, defensible, and transparent decision-making. This presentation provides an overview of how watershed intelligence is being advanced through the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s (TRCA) watershed planning framework, and how its application supports more effective and upstream impact assessment.
Grounded in the concept of Integrated Watershed Management (IWM), TRCA’s watershed plans generate, synthesize, and mobilize hydrologic, water quality, natural hazards, and ecological data and science with place-based knowledge and community priorities. The process is both technical and relational — it builds shared understanding among municipal partners, Indigenous Nations, stakeholders, and residents, and enables identification and coordinated implementation of nature-based and climate-resilient solutions to ensure healthy watersheds into future. The presentation will highlight lessons from multiple watersheds representing a variety of land use characteristics, socio-cultural backgrounds, and policy contexts (e.g. Carruthers Creek, Etobicoke Creek, and Humber River watersheds), illustrating how watershed intelligence can be generated for current and future climate, land-use, and management scenarios and mobilized to inform decision making.
Senior Manager at Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and Adjunct Professor at the School of Environment, University of Toronto integrating science, policy, and practice for 15+ years