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“A history of top down management of water in Australia was challenged by drought. Concerned citizens called for implementation of bottom up strategies and inclusion in the decision making process. It was an emerging insight that there were no ‘silver bullet’ single solutions for water management. Both bottom-up and top-down approaches were needed,” wrote Peter Coombes.

“The easy going ‘she’ll be right mate’ culture of Australians masks strong aversion to change ‘we’ve always done it this way’. Our water management is, mostly, a centralised top down (driven by institutions) process. In contrast, Canadians have a bottom up (driven by people) discussion ‘let’s talk about this’ about ideas – consensus via non-government organisations and community governance,” wrote Peter Coombes.

“The definition of ‘water’ is not typically a controversial subject. But….. The final rule for WOTUS takes into account the ‘interconnectedness’ of tributaries, wetlands and other waters to downstream waters. This means the federal government would substantially increase federal control of Minnesota’s lakes, streams, wetlands and drainage ditches,” wrote Rich Sve, local government politician.

“From leaky pipes to sewage overflows, our country’s water infrastructure is in dire need of upgrades. Our outdated infrastructure cannot keep pace with changing demand for water and wastewater treatment, growing population and increasingly heavy storms,” said Jeff Odefey.

“A new report — Water Sensitive Urban Design in the UK — reinterprets the WSUD concept for the UK and its conclusions might best be summed up simply as: for too long, we have been designing water out of our cities when we should have been designing it in,” writes Jonathan Nettler.

For many years, Australia and Europe have faced serious problems with the management and governance of their water resources. These challenges offer a glimpse into Canada’s water future.

“The nexus has not received the national research and policy attention that it deserves. The blueprint has brought together voices from both the energy and the water communities to outline what now needs to be done,” stated Mary Ann Dickinson.

“The interest in the water footprint is rooted in the recognition that human impacts on freshwater systems can ultimately be linked to human consumption, and that issues like water shortages and pollution can be better understood and addressed by considering production and supply chains as a whole,” says Professor Arjen Y. Hoekstra, creator of the water footprint concept

With water shortages constraining food production growth, the world needs an effort to raise water productivity similar to the one that nearly tripled land productivity over the last half-century. Since 70 percent of world water use is devoted to irrigation, raising irrigation efficiency is central to raising water productivity overall.

Acute water shortages will change strategy, business operations; depletion of global water resources is more rapid, severe, and complex than anticipated.