# **2. Analytical Framework**

To analyze the data gathered for this project from the case studies and from the survey of river basin organizations, the project team has developed a framework that identifies a number of political and institutional factors which may be associated with the emergence, sustainability, and success or failure of decentralized approaches to integrated water resource management at the basin scale. These factors, and their hypothesized relationships with basin management in a country that has decentralized or is attempting to decentralize water resource management institutions, are derived from the institutional analysis literature relating to water or other natural resource management and to decentralized systems (especially Ostrom 1990, 1992; also Agrawal 2000; Alaerts 1999; Blomquist and Schlager 1999; Bromley 1999; Easter and Hearne 1993; Wunsch 1991). Our information gathering and analysis focuses on the following sets of variables.

- Contextual factors and initial conditions

- Characteristics of the decentralization process

- Characteristics of central government/basin-level relationships and capacities

- The internal configuration of basin-level institutional arrangements

- Motivation of stakeholders

Variables considered within each set are listed the Appendix. The Fraser Basin case is discussed in terms of these categories and variables in Section 8.

# **3. Methodology**

A case study approach was pursued for this project in order to examine closely the processes of institutional change as well as the current situation. A site visit was facilitated by Fraser Basin Council staff who arranged a schedule of interviews with basin stakeholders and observers, and by a local consultant engaged by the Fraser Basin Council who prepared a background paper on the basin prior to the visit. Background papers for all case study visits are based on a common outline. During the site visit, team members met with and interviewed 28 individuals, including basin-level stakeholders, past and current central, provincial and local government officials, basin council staff and members, and academic researchers with perspectives on governmental structure and water management in Canada.<sup>2</sup> The interviews were focused on understanding the processes of institutional origin and change, and the performance of water management institutions at sub-basin, basin, and national scales, matters that were closely within the

> 2 These included individuals from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, the British Columbia Ministry of Sustainable Resources Management, the British Columbia Ministry of Health, the British Columbia Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, the Sto:lo First Nations tribal council, the Musqueam First Nations tribal council, B.C. Hydro, the Fraser River Port Authority, the Greater Vancouver Regional District, the Fraser River Estuary Management Program, the Burrard Inlet Estuary Action Program, the District of Kent, the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District, Gibraltar Mines Ltd., University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Central Naturalists Council, Fraser Basin Council staff, and several individual proprietors doing business in the basin.

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