Rheanne Kroschinsky

Rheanne Kroschinsky is a water governance researcher currently pursuing her PhD at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. 

Her work, made possible through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, explores governance and decision-making frameworks for community (source) watersheds in British Columbia.

Through partnerships with Syilx communities and the District of Peachland, her research emerges from the UBC Okanagan Watershed Ecosystems Project, a community-engaged initiative focused on the Peachland Creek watershed. She also is a research assistant in the Watershed Research and Extension Program within the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, building community partnerships and bridging institutional resources into community-identified watershed challenges. Rheanne is a Visiting Governance Research Fellow at the University of Victoria’s POLIS Water Sustainability Project, where her work is focused on the exploration of a watershed boards framework for British Columbian watersheds.

Rheanne is grateful to live, work and play in the traditional and unceded lands of the Syilx Okanagan Nation now known as Penticton, and is privileged to spend many afternoons running, hiking and exploring throughout the sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek) watershed.

Read Rheanne’s Master’s thesis: “Watershed Ecosystems and Human Interconnections: A New Model of Governance for Peachland Creek, B.C.”

About

Rheanne Kroschinsky
PhD Student, Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies – Community Engagement, Social Change, and Equity

Email: Rheanne.Kroschinsky@ubc.ca

Research

Governance
Development of an inclusive watershed governance model for sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek) with John Wagner

Here are a few photographs to illustrate various aspects of Rheanne’s work:

  • Rheanne at the halfway point of the Trepanier Greenway hike.

  • Waterfall after hike down the canyon, about 9km up Brenda Mines Road.

  • Looking up from the very bottom of sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek) about 8km up Brenda Mines Road. This perspective helps us understand why it was once termed “Deep Creek”.

  • sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek)

  • Dr. John Wagner and Rheanne Kroschinsky, sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek).

  • Rheanne canyoning down to sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek).

  • Rheanne Kroschinsky and her daughters, Lilly and Orli, participating in the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance Watershed Cleanup for World Rivers Day.

Watershed Ecosystems and Human Interconnections: A New Model for Governance in Peachland Creek, BC.

I have studied the ecological history of the watershed, conducted an extensive interview process with settler culture water users in order to understand their divergent interests and perspectives, and helped to facilitate meetings with our Syilx Okanagan colleagues and community spokespeople.

I have utilized my findings, along with an extensive study of watershed organizations across North America, to help shape recommendations for a collaborative, basin-level governance model that unites the knowledge gathered through the Watershed Ecosystems cluster’s interdisciplinary research process and the voices of the water users, with specific awareness to Syilx Okanagan value systems.  

Meaningful integration of Syilx water sciences, law, and cultural relationships are central tenets of the Watershed Ecosystems cluster research design, and as such, sections of my thesis explored the capacities of IWRM–based frameworks to acknowledge and include Indigenous value systems. 

Getting involved with community-based organizations and interest groups helped me to understand the local context while I worked to develop a governance structure that represented Peachland Creek’s unique socio-ecology.