Canada’s groundwater resources: visions for future governance

In Canada’s groundwater resources (2014), editor Alfonso Rivera, Chief Hydrogeologist with the Geological Survey of Canada, has brought together the most exhaustive work to date on Canada’s groundwater, its essential contributions to the health of landscapes and aquatic ecosystems, and the need to work harder to characterize, conserve and plan for the future of our interactions with this largely irreplaceable water resource.

The enormous value of this book lies in its accessible yet panoramic treatment of both the science behind groundwater and its existence and formation across Canada by region. Due to a historical lack of mapping, monitoring and characterization of aquifers, this key water resource largely remains a mystery for many people, in terms of quality, quantity and location. This varies across the country, but, on the whole, perhaps because of the persistent Canadian myth of an “unlimited supply” of fresh surface water, we have neglected to characterize our aquifers in great detail, let alone effectively regulate groundwater extraction or stipulate maintenance of pristine conditions. As the book’s jacket note comments: “Here in Canada, we do not know the ratio between available surface freshwater … and groundwater in aquifers, although we believe there is more groundwater than surface water, as with the rest of the world.”

This lack of knowledge has far-reaching consequences, especially in the context of the nexus among food, water and energy. Far from being merely a neglected asset due to a lack of knowledge, the current approach to groundwater management in Canada is largely sympathetic to unregulated extraction, and complacent to contamination of what may, in the future, prove to be more valuable than gold – or fossil fuels. Climate change effects on the hydrological cycle are increasingly bringing water supplies – and corollary factors that humans rely on, such as crop success – into question, due to longer, hotter, drier summers, and shifting rainfall patterns. Our customary reliance on snowmelt runoff to conveniently deliver fresh water during spring and summer when rainfall typically tapers off is likewise threatened, due to changes in the cryosphere as the Earth warms and snowpack and glaciers diminish.

The pressing question of how to respond to these challenges and ensure reliable water supplies for agriculture and livestock, drinking water, hydropower and municipal services is one pointer to the crucial importance of groundwater supplies in Canada. Regional issues are now arising that further highlight the importance of improving our groundwater knowledge and appreciation. For instance, shale gas development in northeastern British Columbia is turning the Peace River region and its aquifers into what some term a “pincushion” of boreholes, pumping a toxic mix of water and chemicals in pipes through the aquifers and down to the shale gas beds several kilometres below (Mech 2011). This mixture will stay in the shale beds forever, and raises questions about the permeability of the surrounding rock, and its potential for movement over time, not to mention the possibility of pipe failure during operations, all of which may have grim consequences for the region’s groundwater.

The Peace is a fertile agricultural region, an area that could represent a food security asset to future western Canadians. As climate change advances, and with it the potential for major crises in the global food system due to droughts, floods and high temperatures affecting crop productivity and viability, the value of such landscapes and the precious water they harbour will likely far outstrip the value we place on them today. Far-sighted land use planning and water governance measures should reflect these changing priorities, and place greater emphasis on conservation and protection of such resources as insurance against future inclement conditions. The historical neglect of groundwater as a policy priority and environmental afterthought is due for a change in Canada. This book can help.

This large and comprehensive volume uncovers in detail not only the science of groundwater and its formation and movement, but also its distribution across the country, known locations, associated natural systems and challenges. Fifty earth scientists were involved in preparation of the book’s 16 chapters. Scientists will appreciate the rigor that underpins the work, and practitioners will benefit from the extensive characterization of groundwater supplies, their cycles and their vulnerabilities. Decision makers should also benefit from this compendium of information about a resource that we may come to rely on vastly more heavily than we currently do – although, even now, almost 9 million Canadians rely on groundwater (Environment Canada 2013). Water balance modeling on a grand scale will become a required task as we work to adapt to climate change impacts.

A 2010 report on a 2009 meeting of the Canadian Council of Academics noted “a lack of consolidated knowledge to define Canada’s groundwater … represents a significant impediment to informed policy-making” (Trainer 2010, 1). The report “concluded that a Canada-wide sustainability framework, applied at all levels of government, is required to improve the management and understanding of Canada’s groundwater” (Trainer 2010, 1). This book should be used as a cutting-edge asset in the development of such a framework.

We can only hope. In California, deep in a record drought, aquifer withdrawals have accelerated beyond any hope of maintaining the resource. Recharge, which can take thousands of years in some areas, is just too slow compared to the rate of extraction. Similarly, irrigation supporting the production of one-fifth of the wheat, corn, cattle and cotton in the United States is emptying the massive Ogallala Aquifer in the Great Plains, raising the spectre of vast regions becoming short of a resource that underpins countless crops, farms and food supplies, by 2040 (Plumer 2013). Not being able to see groundwater, and the lack of proactive governance applied to its management, has already led to irreversible threats to the key US water reserves mentioned above, in ways that would be unlikely to occur with surface water supplies.

Interested Canadians should use the information in this book to avoid similar catastrophes, and to put into practice strategic approaches based on aquifer formation and recharge that will ensure future generations – hard-hit as they may be by climate change impacts – have access to groundwater supplies, that may indeed come to represent the difference between life and death. To quote Canadian water and climate change expert Robert W. Sandford (2011, 102): “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” It’s time we gave Canada’s groundwater the attention it deserves, and this book is the place to start.

Deborah Harford
Executive Director, Adaptation to Climate Change Team
School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University
© 2015 Canadian Water Resources Association
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07011784.2014.999826