The shores of the Great Lakes are a battleground, and their future use is shrouded in uncertainty and controversy. Lakefront owners, armed with their deeds, assert an exclusive right to use their properties at least down to the water's edge. Members of the public, brandishing the venerable but...

This article is a study of the then proposed 1971 U.S.-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the long history of developing U.S.- Canadian cooperation that preceded it. The article suggests that this experience: (1) offers guidance for the solution of problems that other programs of...

There is a lot of excellent academic, policy and practice work on the links between natural resources and conflict. There are still different viewpoints in the field of the exact relationship of resources to conflict, as people have summed up as the distinction between greed and grievance....

Despite the complexities of climatology, certain consistent themes emerge with implications for water availability: as the world gets warmer, it will experience increased regional variability in precipitation, more frequent heavy precipitation events, becoming more susceptible to drought. This...

This article provides a brief overview of hydraulic fracturing regulation in United States and Canada, with a focus on the state of Michigan and the province of Ontario. It then discusses the ban on new and increased diversions of Great Lakes water in the Agreement and the Compact, and how this...

The paper surveys the evolution of two international environmental agreements originating in the 1970s and intended to promote water quality. Both the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the Barcelona Convention system respecting the Mediterranean have adapted to newly acknowledged...

Public participation has become a standard component of environmental decision-making processes. Frequently used methods of public involvement, such as public comments and hearings, however, are too often reactive in nature, involve insufficient deliberation, and engage only a small number of...

Attention to the need for greater stakeholder involvement in environmental decisionmaking has been increasing in recent years. The authors draw on a number of cases of environmental planning in the Great Lakes Region in an attempt to understand the possible benefits stakeholder processes can...