Linda Nowlan

Linda Nowlan is a Faculty Research Associate in the Program on Water Governance at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on groundwater, water allocation, water rights, and transboundary cooperative water management.

Ms. Nowlan has served as a staff lawyer and then as Executive Director of West Coast Environmental Law. She has also served as a member of the Independent Drinking Water Review Panel; a diplomat in the Environment Policy Branch of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and; a consultant to numerous organizations including the World Resources Institute, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Friends of the Earth Canada, the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, the Globe Foundation, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation and the Auditor General of Canada. During her years of legal practice, Ms. Nowlan gained private sector experience in civil litigation, and worked for two United Nations agencies in Nairobi and Hong Kong.

Ms. Nowlan is a member of the Vancouver Foundation’s Environment Committee and the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law and its Specialist Group on Water and Wetlands. She is a Fellow of LEAD International, Past President of the Board of Directors of Smart Growth BC, an organization she helped create, and has been actively involved with many other organizations including the Islands Trust Fund, ELAW International, and the BC Endangered Species Coalition.

Ms. Nowlan holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University, a JD from the University of Toronto Law School, and a Master of Arts from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

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