The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) recently issued a document entitled Groundwater Sustainability Assessment Approach: Guidance for Application. The document is intended to assist users to successfully apply the Groundwater Sustainability Assessment Approach (GSAA) developed by the CCME. The document provides a balance of high-level guidance and practical how-to advice, highlighting issues and actions jurisdictions should take into account in implementation of the approach. The guidance is comprehensive in scope with specific explanations on the GSAA, definitions and principles.
The GSAA was developed and tested by the CCME as an approach for assessing the sustainability of groundwater resources at a local, regional or Canada-wide scale. The resulting GSAA is a high-level framework that can be interpreted for application across various scales, locations and circumstances.
The guidance document was produced by the CCME to support the use of the GSAA and is meant to assist users to successfully apply the GSAA. It provides a balance of high level guidance and practical how-to advice while highlighting issues and actions jurisdictions should take into account as they work through the GSAA.
The document itself is modular. It can be applied linearly, from beginning to end, but also allows users to focus on the specific guidance most appropriate to them. It is comprehensive in scope with specific explanations provided on the GSAA approach, definitions, and principles for reference. Useful background links to past research or reports are also included for easy reference. To help gather and contextualize best practices, interviews were conducted with the leads of all pilot projects.
