Socioeconomic Pillar for the Oldman Watershed Assessment

The Oldman Watershed Council (OWC) is a not-for-profit organization in southern Alberta, Canada. As one of 11 Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils (WPACs) in Alberta, mandated by the provincial government to provide an independent voice for watershed management and health under the province's Water For Life strategy. The OWC is a collaborative forum for all voices that advances watershed health and water security through education, action, and stewardship, with extensive experience in conducting scientifically based programming.

The OWC is launching a State of the Watershed assessment to rate the current health of the Oldman watershed. The OWC’s previous State of the Watershed assessment was released in 2010 (OWC, 2010) and focused on environmental indicators. In the upcoming assessment, OWC aims to take an innovative approach, weaving Indigenous perspectives with social and economic data to enhance the environmental analysis. The State of the Watershed will therefore encompass three pillars: Environmental, Indigenous, and Socio-Economic. The State of the Watershed assessment will use collaborative, science-based methods to summarize current conditions and identify where future land and water management efforts are needed. The OWC’s Watershed Assessment Program Manager will lead the Environmental Pillar, using the Freshwater Health Index approach (Vollmer et al., 2018), and long-term Indigenous partners will oversee the Indigenous Pillar. As OWC lacks in-house expertise in social sciences and economics, additional support is needed for the Socio-Economic Pillar.

This project requires expertise in social and political sciences and an understanding of local and regional socio-economic dynamics of the Oldman watershed. To fulfill project objectives, the project intern requires graduate-level experience (i.e., a minimum of a Master’s degree in progress) and an academic background focused on public policy and political science, with research experience. To fill this gap, the Prentice Institute at the University of Lethbridge, a social and political science research institute, is overseeing the Socio-Economic Pillar and serving as the academic supervisor for the internship. The Prentice Institute conducts research that integrates demographic changes and their impacts on ecosystems, health, and the economy. The Prentice Institute, OWC, and the intern will collaborate to:

       i) Select socio-economic indicators across the Oldman watershed to be translated into data-driven storytelling; and

      ii) Conduct preparatory work to engage stakeholders and rightsholders in the Oldman watershed on the governance and management of freshwater resources following methods from the Freshwater Health Index.