A water soft path for the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

The soft path recognizes the potential impacts of human water withdrawal on ecological integrity and biodiversity and the importance of limiting the amount of water being removed from natural freshwater systems. [...] Instead of planning by forecasting from the present to the future, the soft path approach uses a technique called “backcasting”, which begins by defining a goal for a sustainable and desirable future state for the planning area (in terms of water resources and use) and then devising policies and strategies that will lead to the achievement of that future. [...] The numerous freshwater wetlands (marshes, swamps, and bogs), rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds, and extensive tidal marshes, mud flats, and estuaries in the six watersheds support large numbers of waterfowl and migratory shorebirds and 25 freshwater and diadromous fish species, and provide critical habitat for species-at-risk such as the endangered inner Bay of Fundy Atlantic Salmon (Davis and Br [...] The largest population centres and majority of commercial, institutional, and industrial establishments are located in the Cornwallis River and Annapolis River watersheds, and are especially concentrated in an urban corridor, which runs between the Town of Wolfville and the community of Coldbrook (Timmer 2003b). [...] The withdrawal approvals process is intended as a means for the NSDEL to allocate water based on an assessment of the potential effects of each proposed withdrawal on existing users and the environment (NSDEL 2006) and to be able to monitor the amount of water allocated in the province (see Table 4 and Section 7.0 for comments on the effectiveness of this process).