Integrated Management of Dams and Resilience of Local Communities to Climate Change

The project will make it possible to adapt dam management to climate change and the water needs of local communities.

Project details
Scientific program
2014-2019 programming
Theme(s) and priority(s)
Water Management
Start and duration
May 2019 • 20 months
Project Status
Completed
 
Principal(s) investigator(s)
Catherine Frizzle
COGESAF
Catherine Choquette
Université de Sherbrooke

Context

Quebec has more than 8,000 dams with various uses or purposes such as hydroelectricity, flood control and recreation. Managing a dam involves choosing the water level in the upstream reservoir as well as the flow to be evacuated into the body of water downstream.  Since the water needs arising from the various uses are often concurrent, it is often impossible to satisfy them simultaneously at all times, causing usage conflicts. Many factors can influence the management of dams (or reservoir lakes), and the dam managers’ ability to maintain a hydrological and ecological balance may prove to be all the more complex in the context of climate change, which accentuates periods of strong flows and droughts or alters peak periods.

Dam managers are legally constrained by criteria that mainly refer to the safety of the dam (rupture potential) as well as its purpose (production of hydroelectricity, for example). Thus, they are required to adopt management plans for the retained water but are not obliged to consult the public or take local stakeholders’ concerns or climate change into consideration (beyond safety issues). 
Faced with these findings, a multidisciplinary research team was mobilized to improve knowledge on the governance of dams, to provide governance tools and to make recommendations as part of a research-action project covering three case studies: the North Hatley dam at Lake Massawippi, managed by the inter-municipal Massawippi Regional Park board of administration, the Lake Montjoie dam, managed by the Association pour la protection du lac Montjoie, and the Jules-Allard dam at Grand lac Saint-François, managed by the Centre d’expertise hydrique du Québec.
 

Objective(s)

The project aims to respond to the need for well-adapted integrated management of dams, as well as the need to manage other risks related to the impacts of climate change that cannot be internalized in dam management plans (residual risks), by means of a social partnership set up by the research team. This social partnership is based on the following specific objectives:

  • With the stakeholders, co-create a dam management plan that is adapted to climate change and that integrates the concerns of local communities regarding the environment and the various uses of the water

  •  With local communities, co-generate a management plan for residual climate risks, i.e. risks that cannot be taken into account by the management of water levels and flows

  • Provide local communities with scientific information and governance tools to strengthen their capacity to adapt to climate change

Methodology

The Acclimatons-nous! Barrages project established three living labs and created and implemented a normative governance model made up of the following elements:

  • Mobilization of resources (establishing the project team, recruiting experts, enlisting key participants, identifying the issues, and assessing the land)

  • Production and sharing of information (documenting issues, hydrological analysis and management of water levels and flows in reference and future climates, knowledge transfer)

  • Co-generation of a solution (creating a space for dialogue, providing information promoting informed decision-making, and co-creating management plans and residual climate risk management plans)

  • Follow-up measures (creating a monitoring committee, identifying the committee’s role and frequency of activities)

Results

The objectives of the Acclimatons-nous! Barrages project, whether achieved in whole or in part, made it possible to confirm the benefit of the normative governance model proposed for the development of dam management plans integrating climate change and local concerns. As shown in Table 1, the discussions appear to have made it possible to specify certain management constraints in order to find a comprehensive solution and identify adjustments for the management plans of certain dams.

tableau

Table 1. Current constraints and solutions arising from the co-creation of the Acclimatons-nous! Barrages project.


North Hatley dam

This dam was previously operated by the municipality of North Hatley and is now operated by the municipality of the Canton de Hatley. This change of manager during the project and the new manager’s desire to collaborate with the MELCCFP’s Direction générale des barrages to apply the dam management plan more rigorously justified maintaining the status quo for at least three years, i.e. the time required to observe whether or not certain issues had improved. However, adjustments to the management of the dam were made, such as the gradual opening or closing of the gate and the stabilization of the water level in mid-October to preserve the lake trout population, in particular.

Lake Montjoie dam

In the case of this dam, the co-generation of solutions should continue in the coming months. Certain elements were identified as being important to consider for the water level during the winter. However, the co-generation process has already made it possible to identify the necessary adjustments: a minimum flow at all times from the dam and an end to the draining of Lake Montjoie in the spring. Lastly, although this is not simply a matter of managing water levels and flows, it also seemed appropriate to assess the possibility of making structural modifications to the dam in order to promote the achievement of the guide curve. In addition, the maximum operating level was specified for Lake Massawippi and Lake Montjoie. 

Jules-Allard dam

The current management plan for this dam has been identified as satisfactory, given, in particular, that it has already been analyzed by the dam manager to take climate change and local concerns into account. The normative governance approach has, however, enabled those involved to 

  • Better understand the complexity of its management

  • Appreciate the work done by the manager, 

  • See that the solution to their challenges will not arise from the management of the dam but from the development of a residual climate risk management plan, which will have to be harmonized with the multitude of existing action plans for this area (regional wetlands and water bodies plans, vulnerability analysis of drinking water sources, etc.)

A monitoring committee made up of impacted citizens, the Organisme de bassins versants (watershed organization) and researchers will report on the actions of this plan. 

Analysis of the legal framework

Through the analysis of the legal framework, the project also drew attention to the fact that certain legal constraints are not considered in the current management plans. However, it is important to note that these plans are not accessible for consultation, even after an access to information request was made by the research team. 

Recommendations

In addition to providing local communities with scientific information and governance tools (Acclimatons-nous.org website, social network analysis, mediation/facilitation sessions, etc.), the project offered recommendations to improve the management of dams in light of climate change and community concerns :

  • The provincial government should: 1. Implement section 19 of the Dam Safety Act, and make the impounded water management plan and the emergency action plan public; 2. Promote adaptation to climate change by making it mandatory to co-create the dam management plan and the residual climate risk management plan; and 3. Make financial and technical support accessible/available for managers of dams, both private and public.

  • Dam owners in Quebec should form a network to help standardize the quality of dam management and the effectiveness of the follow-up on issues arising from this management. 

  • The watershed organizations should be able to provide long-term support to the various participants in the integrated management of dams and to consolidate the results of the various planning methods affecting their watershed.

Benefits for adaptation

Benefits for adaptation

Greater awareness and climate change adaptation capacity among the organizations in the three case studies considered.

Development of a governance model to facilitate the resolution of complex, multi-stakeholder issues while promoting social acceptance of solutions co-generated with local stakeholders. This model is also of interest for the management of other dams or other environmental issues in the context of climate change adaptation.
 

Scientific publications

Date
Title
Author
Document type
Language(s)
2023
Gestion intégrée des barrages face aux changements climatiques et résilience des communautés locales
Frizzle, C., Choquette, C., Trudel, M., Leconte,…
French

Funding

Other participants

  • Ministère de l’Environnement et Lutte contre les Changements climatiques (MELCC)

  • ROBVQ

  • Université du Québec à Rimouski

  • Université de Montréal

  • Université McGill

  • Western Ontario University

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