Water-Centric Planning

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food security

    BRITISH COLUMBIA SNOWPACK LEVELS ARE IN THE RED ZONE: “Floods directly impact a few, droughts impact everyone. When there is no water, there is no water until it rains again. For the past decade, the situation has been touch and go almost every year,” stated Kim Stephens of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia


    “Climate change has aggravated an existing vulnerability related to seasonal supply of water in British Columbia. Over time, and as the population has grown, the safety factor has been shrinking. While it rains a lot, we do not have an abundance of supply when demand is greatest. In 2015, Western North America clearly crossed an invisible threshold into a different hydrometeorological regime. Low snowpack and lingering impacts from on-going drought in recent years are pointing towards elevated drought hazards for this upcoming spring and summer,” stated Kim Stephens.

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    LIVING WATER SMART IN BC: “Changes in the Earth’s atmosphere have resulted in the acceleration of the global hydrologic cycle with huge implications. We can expect deeper, more persistent drought punctuated by flooding,” stated Bob Sandford, United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health


    “The drought of 2015 suggests we may be crossing an invisible threshold into a different hydro-meteorological regime in Western North America,” stated Bob Sandford in 2015. Events have proven him to be right. Over the past decade, it has been one drought after another, dramatized by the extremes that impacted BC communities in 2021 and again in 2023. The mountainous nature of BC’s geography means that BC communities are typically storage-constrained, and what storage they do have is measured in months. This accentuates risks, uncertainties and vulnerabilities.

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    FOOD SECURITY IS AT THE INTERSECTION OF LAND, WATER, AGRICULTURE AND CLIMATE: “Without a shift in thinking, sustainable water management may never be achieved in British Columbia. But Donald Trump’s threats make a mind-set change possible,” stated Ted van der Gulik, President of the Partnership for Water Sustainability, and former Senior Engineer in the Ministry of Agriculture


    “If you are importing food, you are importing water. It is that simple. Also, our agricultural land in BC really is not as secure as everyone thinks. You can see all kinds of activities that do not support food production that are going on within the Agricultural Land Reserve. BC has two powerful tools for achieving food security. The Agricultural Land Use Inventory program is input to the Agriculture Water Demand Model. This is a powerful combination. These tools yield accurate data about agricultural land use and water need in all regions of BC,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

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    LIVING WATER SMART IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “Almost always Canada’s exposure within our borders to weather extremes are lower, relatively speaking, than the risks in the international regions we depend upon. And that makes us extremely vulnerable as a net food importer,” stated Dr. Kushank Bajaj, researcher at the UBC Land Use and Global Environment Lab


    “Knowing that Canada is heavily reliant on other places for fruits and vegetables was one way to delve into the actual climate change risk assessment. Looking at risks meant looking at the entire supply chain, not just domestic production. After that, it was a question of how do we make the research more useful for people. So, we developed the Canada Food Flows portal as an online knowledge mobilization platform.My bigger motivation for looking beyond Canada’s borders resulted from my participation in a consultation session held in Ottawa,” stated Kushank Bajaj.

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    WATER ALLOCATION, IRRIGATION AND FOOD SECURITY IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “There are three key messages. First, put the science in water licensing. Secondly, it is all about food security. And thirdly, give people only what water they need today,” stated Ted van der Gulik, former Senior Engineer in the Ministry of Agriculture (November 2021)


    “Irrigation for agriculture is a dominant use of water in British Columbia, the need is seasonal, and use peaks when water supply is at its lowest. With longer and drier summers being the new reality for water management, the Agriculture Water Demand Model is a game-changer for achieving food security in British Columbia. We have downscaled climate data to a 500-metre grid across the province. This means we can reliably estimate the total water need for agricultural irrigation. This further means that the Province can align water allocation and water use. This is a powerful outcome,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

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    LIVING WATER SMART IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: “The Agricultural Water Demand Model is the springboard platform for development of additional web-based tools, notably the BC Agriculture Water Calculator, which supports groundwater licensing by the provincial government,” stated Kim Stephens, Executive Director, Partnership for Water Sustainability


    “Ted van der Gulik had a mandate that allowed him to put his ideas into practice through province-wide implementation of the Agriculture Water Demand Model (AWDM). The power of the tool is found in the provincial 500-metre gridded climate dataset, a North American first. Because it generates solid data on agricultural water need, the AWDM is the tool of choice for doing a Water Sustainability Plan. Work is required in other sectors, notably fisheries, to similarly apply a science-based approach and in so doing generate solid numbers to quantify their needs,” stated Kim Stephens.

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