Baseline Research for Water and Climate Resilience: Applying an Integrated Framework and Centring Indigenous Knowledge in the Lake Ontario Canada Region

The climate crisis is increasingly manifesting as a water crisis, prompting communities to rethink conventional approaches to water and climate governance. This review synthesizes anticipated water and climate-related changes identified by scientists, scholars, and government agencies in the Great Lakes region, with a focus on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from academic, government, and non-government sources, the article develops and applies a Baseline Resilience Research framework to identify governance challenges and initiatives that support resilience-building. The framework offers an alternative indicator tool that moves beyond conventional resilience metrics to incorporate locally grounded, relational forms of knowledge. Indigenous knowledge informs all aspects of the framework, from understanding hydrological change to evaluating governance capacity. Centring Indigenous knowledge helps identify governance gaps, reveal socially and ecologically oriented adaptive strategies, and provide insights into local and transboundary policy contexts. By identifying governance gaps across seven resilience domains and embedding Indigenous governance as a cross-cutting analytical lens, the framework offers a structured baseline for climate-adaptive water policy in complex transboundary systems. The Canadian side of Lake Ontario, characterized by rising climate risks, a densely populated shoreline, and a complex policy environment, serves as an important case study for strengthening resilience at the water-climate interface.