Does Canada Face a Water Crisis?

In his essay,

 ‘An Unexpected Water Crisis,’ Canada’s changing climate means more droughts, floods and storms—along with less ability to predict them.

http://reviewcanada.ca/essays/2012/09/01/an-unexpected-water-crisis/

Robert Sanford opens by stating,

Wherever I travel in this country, the first question I am invariably asked is if Canada really faces a water crisis. To many, I will have to admit, the very notion is ludicrous. “How, in a land in which there is so much water,” they ask, “could such a thing even be possible?” Canada is blessed with more fresh water than any other country on the planet, and if we compute it on a per capita basis, with our sparse population, our water wealth reaches stratospheric proportions. The anticipated changes in precipitation inferred by the relation are reasonably well simulated in global climate models.

More excerpts:

We are already seeing changes. Between 1948 and 2007, the mean temperature in Canada increased by 1.3°C. Canada is now 12 percent wetter on average than it was in the 1950s. More severe weather events are already a reality. Heavy rainfall events that used to happen once every 40 years are now happening every six years in some regions.

But abundance, in this case, leads to dangerous complacency. Water experts, as opposed to the general population, have seen the warning signs for years and have attempted, mostly futilely, to catch the country’s attention. They talk of population increases and industrial land use that put inexorable pressure on the water supply. They warn that surface water is now fully utilized, leaving us dependent on groundwater in the future, without protections in place to save that groundwater from contamination. They point to our aging water infrastructure—pipelines, canals, reservoirs, pumping stations—and predict public health problems for future generations (remember Walkerton?). They are particularly concerned about industrial-scale agriculture and the degradation of water that it produces. There are new contaminants—pharmaceuticals, hormones and endocrine-disrupting compounds—entering the water system every day and not getting filtered out when the water is recycled for reuse. And looming over all the experts’ warnings is the vast and unpredictable canopy of climate change.

Does Canada Face a Water Crisis? Yes.

Does Canada face a water crisis? Absolutely, but it is not one we might have expected.

The entire essay can be read by clicking on the link above.

Robert Sandford is the EPCOR Chair of the Canadian Partnership Initiative in support of the United Nations Water for Life Decade. In addition to playing other roles related to water policy nationally and internationally, he is also on the Advisory Committee for Living Lakes Canada.