Scholarship Application Details

E-mail:
lorraine.nicol@uleth.ca

Phone:
4033292512

Address:
Department of Economics and Agricultural Studies
University of Lethbridge,
4401 University Drive,
Lethbridge, Alberta
T1K 3M4

University Enrolled:
University of Lethbridge

Enrollment Type:
Graduate

Degree Program:
Doctorate, Water Resource Policy and Management

Dean:
Dr. Rene Barendregt

Dean's E-mail:
barendregt@ueth.ca

Visa:
N/A

How my attendance/participation will contribute to my educational experience:
My area of research involves the city of Calgary and the three large rural municipalities and 14 towns that surround it, in southern Alberta, Canada. In 2006 these munitipal bodies embarked on a bold initiative to develop a coodinated approach to land use planning to the year 2075. The key feature of the Plan was the inclusion of density target that would reduce urban sprawl and manage resources ecologically. Water management was critical to the Plan, which envisioned a sharing of water license capacity among member communities on a regional basis, representing a breakthrough in water management in the province. Unexpectedly, at a meeting of the general assembly of the members in mid 2009,three rural municipalities voted against the Plan, primarily due to the three's opposition to density targets contained in the Plan. At this early stage of research, it appears the RM's were unable to overcome long-standing and deep-rooted feelings of recentment towards Calgary, grounded in decades of annamosity and rural-urban tension. Path dependence and critical juncture theory will be used as the theoretical framework to explore this case study. The Emerging Issues conference would be extremely useful in informing my research, given the conference's focus on the rural-urban fringe, related to such topics as land and water which are central to my research.

Title and authors of my oral/poster proposed for conference:
Path Dependence and Critical Junctures and Regional Land Use: A Water Planning Case Study