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This paper investigates the extent that new regionalism has been employed in the planning of rural drinking water systems as a strategy to support rural regional resilience. Through a content analysis of policy documents, this paper explores the question of whether current approaches to the planning of rural drinking water systems reflect a transition towards regional resilience. While there is potential for drinking water systems to support or enhance rural regional resilience, this potential is emergent at best. Policy documents reveal the adoption of regionalist practices is challenged by a lack of regional cohesion and barriers from existing institutional structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a new approach to managing drinking water at a regional scale, incorporating best practices related to regional development, new regionalism, regional resilience, water management, and sustainable infrastructure. The feasibility of the proposed approach was explored in two rural case study regions in Canada, where key informant interviews and focus groups were conducted with municipal, regional, and provincial officials. From a theoretical perspective, the proposed approach to managing drinking water has the potential to leverage the benefits of regionalism to address many existing challenges in rural drinking water systems by improving efficiencies, fostering collaboration, and helping to build regional resilience through an enhanced infrastructure foundation. We outline a variety of potential strategies to enhance rural drinking water systems using the proposed regional water management model. However, the appropriateness and feasibility of the approach in rural settings remains to be seen. The research reveals gaps among stakeholders in their understanding of drinking water systems generally, and further knowledge gaps associated with the potentials for the application of a regionalist approach more specifically, which hindered a more robust assessment of the approach in the case regions. The research adds to the discourse on rural regional development and provides in-depth case study findings on the potential application of regional development approaches in addressing infrastructure challenges in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural drinking water systems face a number of challenges, not the least of which is a growing infrastructure deficit. While age and investment are typically highlighted as key factors influencing the infrastructure deficit, other pervasive challenges remain for rural drinking water systems in British Columbia, Canada. This raises the question of whether factors influencing the infrastructure deficit extend beyond those typically captured in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between rural regional development and drinking water systems in order to provide a historically and theoretically informed lens on the relationships between the two and how these links influence present day challenges. The authors aim to temper the presentism that often characterizes current debates surrounding the infrastructure deficit and to frame current drinking water system challenges within a more contextually-informed and regionally integrated framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]