The challenge of integrated flood risk governance: case studies in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada

This is an institutional study of the policy instruments that respond to flood for agricultural producers and their community. Two case studies in Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada were conducted through a review of secondary sources and semi-structured qualitative interviews to assess instruments based on the perceptions of agricultural producers and people involved in flood governance. Recent changes reducing federal government emergency training services for local responders have occurred at the same time that federal government disaster assistance payments to provinces and local communities have increased dramatically. Financial instruments are of key importance but increased attention should be paid to management instruments including participatory resilient emergency flood planning. Fragmentation in flood instruments and planning, together with a myopic time frame that does not include climate change considerations, leaves the study communities and agricultural producers vulnerable. Disparate communities not operating cohesively as districts leave one case study area vulnerable. These deficiencies are remediable by implementing appropriate missing instruments and comprehensive institutional flood planning.