Why Scale Matters

Water is a flow resource managed along political boundaries. As such, decisions about water governance are complicated by the plurality of actors and institutions that affect and govern water as it moves through the hydrologic cycle. Drawing on scale theory and on concrete examples from Canada, this chapter makes several interrelated arguments: first, that political boundaries render more complicated the effective governance of water, both by adding a layer of administrative and political complexity (i.e., transboundary water) as well as by creating a diversion from other pressing domestic water issues; and, second, that the water-related impacts of changing climate present a scalar challenge of drafting municipal policy in response to global climate change. Together, these arguments highlight the ways in which water cannot be considered apart from its scalar considerations.