February 10, 2009 - The North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance invited rural municipalities within the NSR watershed to join in a wide-ranging discussion about the integrated watershed management planning in the NSR watershed over the next two to three years. The workshop explored collaborative watershed planning and management. The NSWA presented updates on recent work done on water quality and quantity and upcoming work planned for ground water and ecosystem management. Municipalities identified and explained their planning issues, challenges and successes in the watershed. As well, the discussion explored how an effective partnership for watershed planning could be established with the NSWA. The Workshop was directed at representatives of Counties and Municipal Districts within the watershed.

This workshop was part of the February 10-12th joint conference with the Partners for the Saskatchewan River Basin.

The goals of this workshop were to:

• Describe watershed planning directions and goals under Water for Life and outline NSWA's basin-wide progress to date;
• Identify watershed and planning issues most relevant to counties;
• Identify the content of the IWMP that would be most relevant to counties' needs; and
• Evaluate potential for collaborative development of the IWMP.