The use of water quality as a planning tool for recreational lakes has been in active practice in Ontario, as well as other parts of Canada and the United States, for at least 30 years. The Ministry of the Environment (MOE), and several municipalities, has maintained water quality programs in recreational areas since the 1970s. The focus of these programs has been to manage recreational growth in recognition of the important economic link of tourism to water quality. 
    
Lakeshore capacity planning in Ontario grew out of the efforts to control the eutrophication of Lake Erie, in the 1970s, and from some concern for in-land lakes being polluted from sewage and industrial toxic effluents (MOE, 1977).

These programs generally consisted of four elements:

1. Water quality;
2. Shoreline development;
3. Fish habitat; and
4. Boating capacities. 

A brief historical synopsis of “Lake Planning” in Ontario: 

• 1970s — Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) Crown Lake and River Planning Guidelines to subdivide Crown land and sell them to the public as cottage lots.
  
• 1970 — MOE initiates the “Cottage Pollution Control Program” to evaluate existing sewage disposal systems, and to enforce repairs to those found to be unsatisfactory.
  
• 1971 — MOE initiates the “Self-Help Program” in response to many requests from concerned cottagers for water quality surveys on many recreational lakes throughout the Province.
  
• Mid-1970s — MNR commissions the preparation of a report called “Lake Alert”, which applied to disposition of Crown land, an approach which ensured that new lots would not affect the natural environment.
  
• Late 1970s to early 1980s — MNR produces “Lake Planning Guideline”, in 1976, and, in 1982, the “River Cottaging Guideline” to identify where development should be located on Crown land.
  
• 1983 — The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH), MOE and MNR prepares the “Lakeshore Capacity Study”, which investigated the ability to set carrying capacities based upon the trophic status, wildlife habitat, fisheries habitat, and past land use. Unfortunately, it was too complicated for implementation, and the only component that continued was water quality, which evolved into MOE’s Lake Shore Capacity Model (and “Lake Partner Program”), which is based on phosphorus (nutrient) inputs.
  
• Late 1980s to early 1990s — MNR produces other guidelines, which deal with the planning of lakes and shorelines that provide advice on how to voluntarily carry out watershed management studies and how the results could be implemented by municipalities through the planning process, including: the “Lakeshore Management Planning” and the “Shoreline Management Plans”, in 1988; the “Lakes and Rivers Shore Management Planning Manual”, in 1990; and, in 1993, with the collaboration of the MOE, the “Water Management on a Watershed Basis: Implementing an Ecosystem Approach”, “Sub-watershed Planning”, and “Integrating Water Management Objectives into Municipal Planning Documents”.
  
• 1990s to present — with the recent revival by Lake Associations and Stewardship Councils, the current Lake Planning initiative was originally designed to meet the needs of the Peninsula Lake Association. The MNR funded a series of detailed reports to be prepared on water quality, sediment loading, paleoecology (the study of core sediments) and land use. The most important recommendation that evolved from this project was that “local stewardship is required to develop community-based ecosystem health goals and objectives and indicators for sustainable environmental and economic development”…from these activities and recommendations the community moved forward and initiated a community-based planning process and developed the Peninsula Lake Plan.