I think that the water management framework is a good illustration of how you can grapple with the question of cumulative effects. Essentially, the question is how much development can an ecosystem sustain? What a model looks at is, if you introduce certain disturbances into an ecosystem, what effect does that have on the ecosystem overall.
In this example of the lower Athabasca River, the impact is withdrawing water, let's say. So what we're really studying here is what happens if we take out water at different rates, how does that change in the volume affect the flow, and what effect does that have on the organisms that rely on the water? It gives us a tool to then use in our decision-making process on a project-by-project basis.