World Water Day, observed annually by the United Nations on March 22, celebrates water and raises awareness for the billions of people living without access to safe water. This year the theme is groundwater: making the invisible visible. But what are the current and future challenges this natural resource in Canada? The University of Waterloo’s earth and environmental science professor and groundwater expert David Rudolph answers these and other questions.
What is groundwater?
Groundwater is the water that exists and flows into the pores, fissures and fractures in subterranean soils and geological materials. It is a huge freshwater resource that is renewed annually by natural replenishment of rain and snowmelt. Groundwater is an enormous reservoir of water, essentially hidden beneath the land surface, which is a critical component of the Earth’s water cycle.
Why should we care about groundwater?
Groundwater is one of the largest sources of drinking water in the world and is vitally dependent on agricultural irrigation and industrial water supply. It maintains currents, lake levels and wetlands, and supplies water and nutrients year-round. The groundwater reservoir represents a buffered source of water during dry periods or droughts, when surface water sources decrease in size or disappear altogether. As surface water is widely distributed and the challenging effects of climate change become more evident, groundwater resources will be even more critical to increasing water demand and maintaining the health of natural aquatic ecosystems.
What are some of the current and future challenges facing Canada’s groundwater?
Canada’s groundwater resources are critical to social health and economic growth from coast to coast. In urban centers, where water demand continues to grow with population and development, local groundwater extraction rates may exceed natural supplementation, resulting in a progressive reduction in water levels and reservoir storage. This can lead to significant reductions in water flow in streams and wetlands and threatens the long-term sustainability of urban water supply. The slow release of excess agricultural nutrients and chemicals from cultivated regions threatens the quality of regional groundwater resources in rural areas, as well as the inherited effects of road salt discoverers applied to roads and urban areas. Groundwater contamination of historic industrial sites, landfills and leakage of subsurface infrastructures such as sewerage systems have also led to groundwater contamination on a more local scale, which has proven to be a challenge to remediate once the contamination has occurred. Changes in the hydrological cycle resulting from a changing climate can also change the natural rate and location of groundwater replacement, affecting its distribution and availability.
What can we do to keep our groundwater safe and flowing?
The most important step we can take to protect and conserve our priceless groundwater resources is to raise awareness of its critical importance in our society through education at all levels. Groundwater is an enormously elastic resource; however, to ensure sustainable subsurface reservoir levels and fresh quality, an enhanced understanding of the processes and causes of contamination and overuse is required to provide the insights needed to reduce past effects and avoid future impacts. There is a significant lack of a regulatory focus on Canada’s groundwater supply compared to surface water, for example, and the sustainability of this natural resource, which becomes more critical over time, requires careful governance and management.
Learn more about this critical resource and join the Water Institute at the University of Waterloo on March 22 for United Nations Virtual Celebrations World Water Day.
March 22 13:00 – 14:30
A Cross-Country Checkup on Canada’s Groundwater: Perspectives on the Future of one of Canada’s Most Valuable Resources with leading hydrogeologists from across the country.
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
The Legacy of Environmental Racism in North America: Perspectives from Canada and the United States presented by Ingrid Waldron, HOPE Chair in Peace and Health at McMaster University and author / producer of the book and Netflix documentary There’s something in the water and Monica Lewis-Patrick, co-founder of We the people of Detroitand known in the environmental justice community as The Water Warrior.
Additional details and registration information can be found on Waterloo’s World Water Day homepage.
Add Comment