Addressing the future water supply of the Okanagan Valley will be the keynote topic of discussion at the Annual General Meeting for the Okanagan Basin Water Board this week.

The AGM will be held Friday, Aug. 10, at The Innovation Centre, 460 Doyle Ave., in downtown Kelowna. Doors open at 8:30 a.m. and the program begins at 9 a.m.

The theme for this year’s AGM is “Preparing for the Future,” acknowledging the focus of the water board during the past year to prepare the Okanagan for a water future that includes flooding, drought and fires.

Related: Okanagan Basin water projects funded

Leading the discussion will be guest speaker Tamsin Lyle, a well-known thought leader on flood management in Canada.

Lyle will talk about the future of flood planning, preparation, mitigation and resilience in the Okanagan.

She has invested her entire academic and professional careers in the exploration of various aspects of flood management. She is particularly interested in exploring the nexus of science, engineering, policy and planning—disciplines that often work apart or in series in flood projects when best practice suggest they should work together.

Brian Symonds, former B.C. director of water stewardship, will also give a presentation about past and future flood levels in the valley.

Following the presentations from Lyle and Symonds, the 2018 Make Water Work Champion will be unveiled, the Okanagan community which has collected the most pledges per capita to conserve and “Make Water Work” this summer.

Related: Okanagan Basin receives $1.45 million for floodplain mapping

Make Water Work is a valley-wide initiative of the OBWB’s Okanagan WaterWise program, created and delivered in partnership with local governments and utilities throughout the valley.

The AGM will wrap up with the annual report from OBWB executive director Anna Warwick Sears outlining the many projects and programs that the water board has delivered over the past year, and what that work means for the future of water in the Okanagan Basin.

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