Applying A Resilience Lens To Shale Gas Development In Northeastern British Columbia

• Main Author: Williams, Shawn
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Sustainable Energy Development 2015
• Subjects: Liard; Liard River
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1880/109662; https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/35921

Shale gas development in northeastern British Columbia involves the interaction of complex social and ecological systems. This research applies the concept of specified resilience (sensu Walker and Salt 2012) to water resources within the Liard River basin affected by shale gas development. The resilience assessment begins with a summary of the major concepts integral to resilience thinking and then proceeds to describe the Social-Ecological System (SES) in terms of its ecology, governance, Aboriginal interests, industrial technology and practices. The system discussed in the research project highlights system states, controls and feedback relationships useful in evaluating resilience in response to shale gas development. Attributes contributing to resilience were selected to describe the current state of the SES allowing the author to make observations on possible management interventions. Resilience of the water resources in the study area was found to be greatly affected by the existing governance framework prompting the author to advocate a more pragmatic management approach.