Emerging Threats to Water Security
Emerging threats point to a new freshwater reality on the horizon and increase the urgency with which we must address these problems. The stakes of mismanagement and inaction are higher than ever before.
Climate Change
- Impacts of climate change are likely to have profound impacts on Canada’s water resources, especially in the Prairie provinces.
- Between 1998 and 2004, the warming trend in the Prairies contributed to drought that was more severe than during the so-called Dirty Thirties.
- The severity of droughts, floods and storms are expected to increase, straining our aging and often inadequate infrastructure.
Groundwater Mining
- More than 80% of the country’s rural population rely on groundwater for their entire supply of water.
- Despite the fact that almost 10 million Canadians depend on groundwater for drinking water, our scientific knowledge of many groundwater systems is so limited that aquifers are left vulnerable to excessive depletion and contamination.
- Existing, high-level governance frameworks such as The Canada Water Act (1970); The Federal Water Policy (1987); and The Canadian Framework for Collaboration on Groundwater (2003) have either been little-used or have failed to produce clarity in the divisions of responsibility for groundwater management.
Energy Production
- The energy industry is the single largest user of surface water in Canada.
- Canada diverts more water than any other country on Earth with about 97% of the volumes diverted for power generation.
- The most rapidly expanding areas of energy production are the oil sands in Alberta, which is expected to triple by 2015.
- Between 2.5 and 4 barrels of water are used to produce each barrel of oil from the oil sands. After use, most of this water is so contaminated that it is retained in enormous toxic tailings ponds and only 10% is returned to the Athabasca River.
- Oil sands production is affecting both the environmental flows in the Athabasca River and the water quality - seriously impacting downstream First Nations communities, who rely on the river for fishing and hunting.
New Pollutants
- Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) found in our water supplies are increasingly becoming cause for concern.
- PPCPs - including birth control pills, soaps, sprays and antibiotics- have been known to have disturbing effects on aquatic species, such as the feminization of male fish.
Invasive Species
- In Manitoba, the potential for invasive species to access Lake Winnipeg via the North Dakota’s Garrison Diversion and Devils Lake Outlet projects threaten the aquatic health of the Lake that supports aboriginal communities, tourism, recreation and the largest commercial Pickeral fishery in the world.
- Since the first Zebra mussels showed up in Lake St Clair in 1986, they have spread rapidly throughout waterways in North America. They starve native fish by sucking up natural nutrients in the water.
- Accidentally introduced into the Great Lakes, the Lamprey has effectively wiped out the top Great Lakes fisheries because it has no natural predators. Eradication of the lamprey is likely impossible.
