A Watershed Way of Thinking

The CILSJ’s region has numerous lakes, rivers and streams which, among other resources, facilities and services support the natural environment and the existing built communities. The greatest number of water management concerns and issues within the region arise from various forms of urbanization and human activity. More demands are being placed on water resources by competing users, including residential, industrial, agricultural, commercial and recreational developments. The effects of development have contributed to degraded aquatic communities, the loss of well water supply, aquifer contamination, deteriorating water quality and erosion.

The CILSJ recognizes that the effective management of human activities and environmental conditions requires an "ecosystem" approach, in order to ensure that the interrelation of land use planning and the environment is realized. With this in mind,  CILSJ has adopted  the concept of "ecosystem planning”. An ecosystem approach to land use planning requires that boundaries for land use planning be based on biophysical boundaries as the context for examining the relationships between the natural environment and human activities. The primary boundaries for an ecosystem approach to land use planning are the watershed boundaries.

The concept of using watersheds for land use planning and resource management recognizes the following:

·        water continuously moves through watersheds and influences numerous life cycles and physical processes throughout its cycle;

·        an action or change in one location within a watershed has potential implications for many other natural features and processes that are linked by the interactive movement of surface and ground water; and

·        water movement does not stop at political boundaries and may encompass all or part of several municipalities.

The CILSJ region has been organized into five watersheds areas. The watershed boundaries do not coincide with local municipal boundaries, however, they do coincide with many of the natural environmental features that future growth and the quality of life in the CILSJ’s region depend upon.

CILSJ has developed projects to improve water quality, community involvement, education, watershed planning, lagoons and river recovery and reforestation. These are the priorities of the people who reside in the watershed. All of our projects are supported by our member municipalities, companies and our partners, such as the World Wildlife Fund – WWF and the Regional Council of Biology (CRBio-2).