UVic report documents stress on urban Canadian water supply

As fires rage across parts of Canada, and heat waves tax energy and water systems throughout the world, Canada’s city-dwellers are blissfully unaware of the threats to their water supplies. So says a report released today by the University of Victoria’s POLIS Project on Ecological Governance that calls for a profound re-examination of how we get, and use, water in our cities.

“Our urbanites are some of the most wasteful water-users on the planet,” says Oliver Brandes, author of Flushing the Future? Examining Water Use in Canada. “We consume an average of 343 litres of fresh water per person per day in the residential sector alone, and the numbers are rising. It’s a rate second only to the US, and more than double the amount used by most Europeans. This is not necessary.”

The first of a series of three reports this year on Canadian urban water demand management, Flushing the Future? Examining Urban Water Use in Canada, compares the delivery and water use patterns in 20 Canadian cities. A large diversity exists in per-capita use.

“We found a fourfold difference in per-capita water use across all the Canadian cities studied, seemingly regardless of geographic or climatic differences, although the living standards are similar in most locations,” says Brandes.

Of the cities surveyed in Canada, Charlottetown used the least amount of water residentially, at 156 litres per capita per day, while St. John’s, at 659 litres, used the most. Victoria and Vancouver were close to the national average, using 340 and 357 litres per-capita, respectively.

“Watering our lawns and flushing our toilets, we waste vast quantities of fresh water that is unnecessarily treated to drinking water standards,” says Dr Michael M’Gonigle, POLIS Director and Professor and Chair of Environmental Law and Policy at UVic. “By shifting our attention to conservation and controlling use, we might avert the water supply equivalent of what we are currently witnessing with power in Ontario and down the east coast. A shift in thinking away from ever more supplies of fresh water before a crisis hits is exactly what is needed.”

Inefficient use results in costly and over-extended regional infrastructure, and significant ecological impacts related to the diversion, storage and withdrawal of water, as well as the return of used water to lakes, rivers and wetlands says the study.

“Dams and diversions are primary destroyers of aquatic habitat, which are among the most endangered ecosystems on the planet” notes Brandes.

Although the common perception is that Canada has an abundance of water, over a quarter of municipalities with water systems reported seasonal shortages between 1994 and 1999, the report says. But, overall, reliable data on water use are difficult to get.

“The muddy figures tell us what a non-issue this has traditionally been,” he says. “Fresh water is a renewable resource, just like fish or trees. We know how many fish we catch, and how many trees are cut down. But we don’t have good numbers on how much water we use. Nevertheless, given the wide differences between cities, the potential clearly exists to reduce water use without sacrificing quality of life.”

Future reports will examine the “demand side” of water usage to assess how Canada’s cities reduce their water use—and their vulnerability to shrinking water resources. Reducing demand has worked well in energy use over the past decades, and is now working in other parts of the world that are already grappling with the looming global water crisis. Managing demand can happen through a variety of ways, usually entailing a mix of education, pricing reform, regulation and recycling.

The Urban Water Demand Management project at UVic is supported by a grant from the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation. The full report is available at www.polisproject.org, or by contacting the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at (250) 721-6388 or email polis@uvic.ca.

-- 30 --