The Assessment and Planning research project began in the late 1980s as an effort to examine and encourage integration of environmental considerations in land use planning especially in areas facing growth pressures. The research, for many years funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, has compared and learned from experiences in two provinces – Ontario and British Columbia – and has generated a series of case studies that are available on this site.
The research continues today, especially in studies that overlap with related work on sustainability assessment at the project and strategic level (which includes planning). Please also see the Sustainability Assessment Project section.
Many of the studies have been done, in whole or in part, by graduate and undergraduate students in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo.