“Towards a Vision and Strategy for Water Management in Canada” is a synthesis of five workshops held across Canada in 2006, which included almost 70 presentations and involved hundreds of participants from a wide cross section of sectors and regions, providing a comprehensive snapshot of the needs and opportunities that exist in terms of water management in Canada.
Education can play an important role in facilitating change. Education increases our capacity to make informed decisions and to act effectively in addressing environmental and development issues. The WaterBucket website is a prime example of using outreach to promote the move from awareness to action.
The phrase ‘water for life and livelihoods' has been introduced to British Columbians in order to focus them on what is at stake over both the short and long terms. The phrase conveys the fundamental principles of sustainability of natural systems in their own right and in relation to the health and well-being of people who benefit from the use of water for basic life needs and economic activity.
Within the next 10 to 15 years it is projected that the available water in the Okanagan Basin will be fully allocated. At the same time, agricultural development is also expected to increase, with potential growth in the grape and wine sector leading the way. Also, the region will continue to experience both the benefits and consequences of climate change – that is, a longer growing season and changes in form and pattern of precipitation and runoff, respectively.
Convening for Action on Vancouver Island (CAVI) is a pilot program at a regional scale. CAVI will integrate with other groups, move ‘green value' from concept to practice, and encourage the introduction of a ‘design with nature' way of thinking into local government decision processes.
Published in 2006, “Buried Treasure: Groundwater Permitting and Pricing in Canada” was written to help fill the need for greater public awareness of the value of groundwater and an understanding of how it is regulated.
During the next quarter century, water utilities in North America will face a number of developments that will put pressure on their resources, spur them to develop alternative supplies, and necessitate new approaches to how they conduct business. This article in the August edition of the AWWA “Journal”, the second in a series, highlights two of these trends—population growth and climate change.
As reported in the October 2005 edition of the AWWA “Journal”, results are in from the second annual State of the Industry survey—a comprehensive evaluation of the water industry's overall health. “The State of the Industry Report 2005: A guide for good health” presents key findings from the survey, which included the responses from more than 1,700 utility personnel, service providers, and other individuals.
Standard water industry tools—such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and modeling programs—collect and store data that are currently unrelated to time and space. As reported in Authentic intelligence: Automated decision-making through GTSM (AWWA Journal, November 2005), a new tool called geospatial time-series management can help water managers consider anything that moves or changes through time, such as rainfall, reservoir levels, treatment flows, and natural stream flow.
The Kelowna Joint Water Committee (KJWC) consists of the five major water utilities servicing the City of Kelowna. In 2005, the KJWC recently updated the long-range water-servicing plan for Kelowna that was originally produced in 1995. The comprehensive report explores a number of water-related issues.
