OVERVIEW
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Landscape 3 is the prairies, a region of western Canada that encompasses vast agricultural lands, embedded in a landscape with major issues of water insecurity and complex issues like declining rural population. In this region, we followed key questions raised by government, conservation organizations, and agricultural producers, working to build our understanding of how to balance agricultural production with conservation in the context of wetlands, and the drainage of wetlands.
Our first goal was to better understand the biophysical environment and key ecosystem services associated with wetlands (and impacted by wetland drainage). This is work we have advanced (with partners “Prairie Water”) by developing ecosystem service models, grounded in the unique hydrology and ecology of the region. These models allow us to test scenarios of drainage across different climate conditions, and demonstrate varied sensitivity of ecosystem services to drainage extent, but important impacts on biodiversity, flood risk, and water quality at low or intermediate drainage levels.
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Our second goal is to better understand perspectives associated with wetland conservation and drainage and key sources of conflict over the issue. Conflict has been associated with deep differences in how wetlands and drainage are understood, different values associated with key decisions, and conflict has been worsened by decades where rules remained unenforced. Conflict is also tied to long-standing disputes distant from drainage but embedded in longstanding conflicts in communities.
The final strand of our ResNet work, is to advance scenarios of the future prairie. These scenarios are tools which can be used to bridge understandings, and identify desirable futures, potentially helping alleviate growing conflict over drainage and broader issues of rural-urban polarization. They are also a tool that helps identify some of the key features that are expected to define the trajectories of change including both climate, and the regulatory environment.
The final strand of our ResNet work, is to advance scenarios of the future prairie. These scenarios are tools which can be used to bridge understandings, and identify desirable futures, potentially helping alleviate growing conflict over drainage and broader issues of rural-urban polarization. They are also a tool that helps identify some of the key features that are expected to define the trajectories of change including both climate, and the regulatory environment.
LANDSCAPE 3 TEAM
Philip Loring he/him Co-Lead University of Guelph 
Angela Bedard-Haughn COLLABORATOR University of Saskatchewan |
Helen Baulch she/her co-lead University of Saskatchewan 
Colin Whitfield COLLABORATOR University of Saskatchewan |
Jon MacDonald he/him/they Phd student University of Saskatchewan |
Don Selby he/him masters student University of Saskatchewan |
Brian Pentz he/him ALUM |
Chantel Chizen ALUM |
Daniela Klicper alum |
Emily Cavaliere ALUM |
PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS
Environment and Climate Change Canada |
Saskatoon Water Security Agency LIAISON, Etienne Soulodre |
FEATURED PUBLICATIONS
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An integrated assessment of impacts to ecosystem services associated with prairie pothole wetland drainage quantifying wide-ranging losses
Whitfield, C. J., Cavaliere, E., Baulch, H. M., Clark, R. G., Spence, C., Shook, K. R., He, Z., Pomeroy, J. W., & Wolfe, J. D. (2024)
In many regions, a tradeoff exists between draining wetlands to support the expansion of agricultural land, and conserving wetlands to maintain their valuable ecosystem services. Decisions about wetland drainage are often made without identifying the impacts on the services these systems provide. We address this gap through a novel assessment of impacts on ecosystem services via wetland drainage in the Canadian prairie landscape.
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Science, Data, and the Struggle for Standing in Environmental Governance
Loring, P. A., Harrison, H. L., Gaspard, V., Minnes, S., & Baulch, H. M. (2021)
Here, we explore how people entangled in natural resource conflicts employ and discuss data. We draw on ethnographic research with two cases of conflict: salmon fisheries in Alaska, USA, and agricultural water management in Saskatchewan, Canada. Both cases illustrate how data, through the scientization of environmental governance, can become a means of empowerment and disempowerment: empowering those with access and influence over data and disempowering those without such access.
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Transforming conflict over natural resources: a socio-ecological systems analysis of agricultural drainage
Minnes S, Gaspard V, Loring PA, Baulch H, and Breen S-P. (2020)
Agricultural drainage is a complicated and often conflict-ridden natural resource management issue, impacting contested ecosystem services related to the retention of wetlands as well as the productivity of farmland. This research identifies opportunities to transform the conflict over agricultural drainage in Saskatchewan, Canada, towards collaboration. We report on ethnographic research informed by a conservation conflict-transformation framework to evaluate the nature of the conflict and whether drivers of the conflict operate principally at the level of disputes over discrete ecosystem services or if they reach deeper into local social circumstances and build on larger unresolved conflict(s) among groups in the region.
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Synthesis of science: findings on Canadian Prairie wetland drainage
Baulch, H., Whitfield, C., Wolfe, J., Basu, N., Bedard-Haughn, A., Belcher, K., … Spence, C. (2021).
Extensive wetland drainage has occurred across the Canadian Prairies, and drainage activities are ongoing in many areas. In 2017 the Global Water Futures program funded the Prairie Water project, with the broad goal of helping to foster improved water security in the region. Throughout the duration of this project, it has been clear that a diverse group of stakeholders (including river basin organizations, government agencies, and landowners) is seeking the same information – a synthesis of what is known and not known about the effects of wetland drainage.
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KNOWLEDGE MOBILIZATION
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In "Wetland / Waste Land" (2019), anthropologist Philip Loring and filmmaker Donald Selby look at the emerging conflicts in the Canadian prairies over the apparently-conflicting needs of wetlands and agriculture. The prairies are the "duck factory" of North America, so conservation of wetlands is essential for waterfowl and other plants and animals. But the prairies are also Canada’s bread basket, and Saskatchewan farmers manage 40% of Canada’s total crop land. How water and land are managed has real implications for local ecosystems and livelihoods.
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