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“A longstanding goal of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing is to find a balance between supporting those local governments who are leaders, while over time raising the bar to encourage the rest. With many Water Conservation Plans being more than 5 years old, it is time for a refresh. And this is where we believe the new BC Landscape Water Calculator has a timely fit. The tool is an exciting new evolution. It would allow local governments to further support their Water Conservation Plans with the next piece of education for those who are actually turning on the taps at their homes,” stated Brian Bedford.

“A platform re-build for the BC Agriculture Water Calculator was the opportunity to spin-off the BC Landscape Water Calculator as a stand-alone tool for use by local governments and their residents. At the same time, the City of Kelowna was implementing a landscape bylaw that established an allowable water budget at the individual property scale. Therefore, it was a natural fit for the Partnership and City to collaborate in the development of the BC Landscape Water Calculator,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

“Rainwater harvesting has become a rapidly trending topic in the global discourse of climate change in 2019. How can we implement a rainwater harvesting system at home in contemporary Canadian society? Let’s take a look at what rainwater harvesting is and how we can implement strategies within the community to help make a difference in response to climate change today,” wrote Donald Kim.

“Over the past few decades, the prices charged by municipalities for residential water and wastewater services in many Canadian cities have increased much faster than increases in the rate of inflation. The cost of municipal water and wastewater services in 93 Canadian cities shows that residential water and wastewater utility charges in 22 of those cities are exceeding international affordability benchmarks for low-income households. More than 130,000 low-income households in these 22 cities are already paying more for water than they can afford,” wrote Jim Warren.

Millions of people in Mexico City lack access to running water. Along with Cairo, Bangalore, Cape Town, and seven other megalopolises, Mexico City will run out of water by 2030. The irony is, water in the city abounds. Set on a mile-and-a-half-high basin and surrounded by mountains, the city — which used to be integrated with a system of lakes and rivers — receives more yearly rainfall than London, England. Today, most of the city’s water is collected from underground wells or pumped from hundreds of miles away through inefficient and costly infrastructure.

Persistent drought conditions mean that Cowichan Valley residents asked to reduce water use by up to 30 percent. The Cowichan Valley Regional District had been at Drought Level 1 since May 2019, which calls for a 10 percent voluntary reduction in water use. But Kate Miller said that further analysis by her office in early June had concluded the region was really at Level 2 and fast approaching Level 3. “We can see the low lake and river levels, but data from provincial monitoring wells tells us the drought is also affecting groundwater aquifers,” she said.

“The new reality in BC is drought and flooding. It is either famine or feast. The water balance is out of balance,” says Kim Stephens. “The summer dry season has extended on both ends. Communities can no longer count on a predictable snowpack and reliable rain to maintain a healthy water balance in watersheds. This is putting water supply systems and ecosystems under extreme stress. 2015 was the first year of this new reality. By 2018, there was little doubt that the extent of drought and forest fires in the Northern Hemisphere may define a turning point in human history.”

Extreme hot dry weather has left streams and rivers across the province running low and that’s creating drought conditions more commonly seen in late July. “I tend to be kind of shocked,” David Campbell said. “All of the rivers across the province are extremely low for this time of year. We are coming into conditions that we haven’t really seen at all — or certainly not that often.” That has elevated concerns about already vulnerable salmon that need the tributaries to get into the rivers to spawn in late summer, when the drought is expected to be at its worst.

“We hear all the time, Vancouver is rainy, why does a place like this need water restrictions?,” said Uytae Lee. “It’s because rainy summer days are becoming rarer and the reservoirs will be emptier and it’s no longer enough to cross our fingers and hope it lasts through fall. A key part of our water problem in Vancouver is we treat our water supply like a buffet. One solution is to install water meters on City of Vancouver homes — similar to hydro meters — that can record residential water usage. Only six per cent of homes in the city currently have a meter installed.”

The short film begins with a young couple enjoying the beauty of nature in a helicopter. Their helicopter crashes in a deserted place in Kenya where they can’t find a single drop of water. While desperately searching for water, they come across a tribal man with a vessel of water. They are in a situation where they are ready to pay the tribal man anything to quench their thirst but he is not ready to give them any. The film shows the difficulties the couple has to go through to get a few drops of water.