Opinion: Time is running out to secure Saskatchewan's water prosperity. The province's prosperity hinges on the ability to manage its water, which is key to the success of every economic sector.
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The world needs more of what Saskatchewan has to offer and everything we produce needs freshwater.
Saskatchewan’s prosperity rides on our ability to manage our water. Every bit of our economy — ranging from plant and animal food production, resource sector and population — hinges on our ability to secure our water.
Water can be scarce in semi-arid Saskatchewan. Human ingenuity in securing, preserving and managing water is needed for the greatest benefit to society.
Canada has undergone an unprecedented number of severe water-related natural disasters since the turn of the century. They resulted in an astonishing $40 billion of damage to our homes, communities, industry, agricultural sector and infrastructure.
The damage is more severe than economic costs show, as water disasters have broken the trust Canadians once had with water. The dream of the community or cabin on a lake can quickly transform to a nightmare of flooded homes, washed-out bridges or inadequate water supply.
Bodies of water where Indigenous peoples lived sustainably for countless generations no longer provide reliably safe drinking water or support the ecosystems on which they depend.
We are in a period when snow and lake ice melt earlier, weather patterns are unfamiliar and flood and drought visit more often.
This change over a century created an unfamiliar world where our experience and traditional approaches no longer provide adequate guidance for preserving the environment, building prosperity and living in safe, healthy communities.
Saskatchewan suffered disproportionately from these disasters, most recently from severe drought that has still not eased in parts of the province. Our Prairie lakes are not supposed to look green and be toxic to life. Our deltas are not supposed to be dry and barren.
Our response should include river-basin-level water co-ordination, new investment in water research and forecasting infrastructure, and novel technologies applied to the prediction of floods and droughts.
Funds for disaster mitigation, adaptation and recovery should be secured. Natural infrastructure such as wetlands, peatlands and forests can reduce the impact of flooding and drought.
Innovative farming methods can manage our land and we must select new crops that survive flood and drought and take advantage of whatever conditions arise.
We require extraordinary and co-ordinated planning to protect our freshwater through conservation of rivers, lakes and their watersheds, and we need the capacity, financial means and legal foundation to co-ordinate this.
Hard-nosed assessments and predictions of water supply from the mountains are necessary for our irrigation expansion plans, community needs, hydroelectricity and ecosystem preservation.
Leading-edge research and science capacity must be delivered and state-of-the-art water prediction and management systems built to inform wise water decisions.
Saskatchewan is fortunate to have Canada’s strongest concentration of globe-leading water researchers, scholars, policy experts and engineers at the University of Saskatchewan. They are poised to create water solutions that can be deployed in Saskatchewan, for Saskatchewan.
Now is the time to bring together the expertise of our universities, provincial and municipal governments, industry, Indigenous communities, non-governmental organizations and civil society to increase our human and technical capacity to protect our water for our future prosperity and sustainability.
Water affects every person in Saskatchewan, and it is by bringing together our capabilities that we can develop novel innovations leading to lasting solutions. We propose the Saskatchewan Water Futures Initiative to work together to find these solutions and work with our partners to implement them.
Time is running out to take water seriously and admit the crisis is affecting people in an inequitable way. We need to protect our province from a drier, stormier and more catastrophic future. Faster than we predicted, it is becoming the present. By combining our best efforts, we can ensure our water — and our prosperity — is secure.
