In 2015, Canada and countries around the world adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. One of the goals calls for clean, accessible water for all by 2030.
Currently, more than two billion people face shortages of fresh water but the United Nations has adopted this promise and through its World Water Day initiative is encouraging the world to leave no one behind.
Even though it is home to approximately seven per cent of the globe’s renewable freshwater, Canada is not exempt from this challenge. Canada’s major watersheds are threatened by pollution, climate change, and the lack of progressive infrastructure and policies that protect water resources and address climate driven disturbances.
Professor Rob de Loë, Professor, School of Environment, Resources, and Sustainability at Waterloo, says the water crisis in Canada will only be solved when decision makers from varying sectors beyond water are addressed.
“When it comes to water governance, Canada has been slow to consider actors, institutions, and drivers beyond the water sector that influence water decisions and the associated outcomes,” says Professor de Loë.
As a Global Water Futures researcher, Professor de Loë is working to identify economic, social, and political drivers that influence Canada’s water governance. Global Water Futures is Canada’s largest water research project and will provide governments, businesses, and communities with the risk management tools they need to tackle threats to Canada’s water supply and quality. With Canada’s water at risk, Professor de Loë would like to see water governance systems take account of key external drivers from sectors such as energy, trade, and finance.
“My Global Water Futures research aims not only to identify key decision makers who normally are not considered by the water sector, but also how to engage them effectively so we can better achieve desired water outcomes – like clean, safe water for all,” he says.
One of Canada’s most prevalent water challenges is the damaging effects of climate change on the delivery of quality drinking water. Drinking water for at least 60 per cent of the largest communities in Canada originates in forested watersheds. Healthy forests produce high quality drinking water supplies, however disturbances, like forest fires, threaten these reserves and challenge drinking water treatment operations through increasingly variable, deteriorated source water quality. Forest fires can deliver suspended solids and nutrients like dissolved organic carbon and bioavailable phosphorus that can lead to conditions that challenge drinking water treatment operations beyond their response capacities. As a result, the delivery of high quality drinking water to Canadians—and many others globally—is being threatened.
Monica Emelko, Professor, civil and environmental engineering, is leading an innovative research initiative called the forWater: NSERC Network for Forested Drinking Water Source Protection Technologies that is leveraging trans-disciplinary expertise to provide the knowledge and technologies needed to ensure drinking water security in Canada’s in the face of climate change.
“Most water supplies can be treated to provide safe drinking water, the question is at what cost?” says Emelko. “With increasing severity of climate change-associated landscape disturbances, we need to rely on both in-plant treatment ‘grey’ technologies and forest management-based ‘green’ technologies to protect public health by ensuring uninterrupted provision of safe, secure drinking water for all, both nationally and globally.”
Both Professor de Loë and Emelko’s research projects are mobilizing knowledge to ensure water security in Canada and globally. Both projects highlight the fact that given the threats and disturbances ushered in by climate change, Canadians will have to adapt and accept progressive approaches and technologies to ensure no one is left behind.
Professor De Loë and Emelko are members of the Water Institute at the University of Waterloo. A leader in water research, the Water Institute is working to find innovative ways to tackle both national and global water challenges. To support the World Water Day initiative, the Water Institute is hosting an all-day conference that highlights current research and discussions around the theme of leaving no one behind.