No abstract

No abstract

This article draws on scholarship in

Infrastructure tends to be conceived as stabilized and ‘black-boxed’ with little interaction from users. This fixity is in flux in ways not yet fully considered in either geography or science and technology studies (STS). Driven by environmental and economic concerns, water utilities are increasingly introducing efficiency technologies into infrastructure networks. These, I argue, serve as ‘mediating technologies’ shifting long-accepted socio-technical and environmental relationships in cities. The essay argues for a new approach to infrastructure that, by integrating insights from STS and geography, highlights its malleability and offers conceptual tools to consider how this malleability might be fostered.

Given the high degree of variation in water governance practices across Canada, and the rapid rate of water-related legislative change in some provinces over the past decade, the purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of water legislation and governance that examines all thirteen provinces and territories, focusing on formal legislation and policies governing drinking water, watershed management (including source water protection), water rights, and water exports. We analyze legislative variation using concepts of harmonization and subsidiarity as a means of assessing the rationale for differing degrees of and approaches to federal and provincial involvement in water policy. Our review suggests that while variation may be appropriate, fragmentation is not. On this basis, we argue that some water issues would benefit from greater harmonization (which in many instances will imply greater federal involvement). In the cases of drinking water, source water protection, and water exports, increased harmonization at the federal level may be warranted. In contrast, whereas improving the federal role remains critical in terms of transboundary water management and water rights, this relates to its traditional activities of coordination, research, dissemination and funding rather than regulatory harmonization per se.Résumé : Étant donné le degré élevé des variations dans les pratiques de gestion des ressources en eau au Canada, ainsi que la fréquence rapide des changements législatifs liés à l'eau dans certaines provinces dans la dernière décennie, l'objet de cet article est de passer en revue de façon méthodique les lois et la gouvernance des ressources en eau des treize (13) provinces et territoires, en se concentrant sur les lois et les politiques officielles régissant l'eau potable, la gestion des bassins hydrographiques (y compris la protection des sources d'eau), les droits relatifs à l'eau et les exportations d'eau. Nous analysons les variations législatives en utilisant les concepts d'harmonisation et de subsidiarité, afin d'évaluer la justification des degrés divergents et les méthodes de participation fédérale et provinciale dans les politiques des ressources en eau. Notre étude suggère que même si une variation peut s'avérer appropriée, une fragmentation ne l'est pas. En partant de cette prémisse, nous avançons qu'une plus grande harmonisation (laquelle dans certains cas demande une participation fédérale plus importante) bénéficierait à certaines questions relatives aux 316 Canadian Water Resources Journal/Revue canadienne des ressources hydriques