Abstract
Recent human-interface wildfires around the world have raised concerns regarding the reliability of freshwater supply flowing from severely burned watersheds. Degraded source water quality can often be expected after severe wildfire and can pose challenges to drinking water facilities by straining treatment response capacities, increasing operating costs, and jeopardizing their ability to supply consumers. Identifying source watersheds that are dangerously exposed to post-wildfire hydrologic changes is important for protecting community drinking-water supplies from contamination risks that may lead to service disruptions. This study presents a spatial index of watershed exposure to wildfires in the province of Alberta, Canada, where growing water demands coupled with increasing fire activity threaten municipal drinking-water supplies. Using a multi-criteria analysis design, we integrated information regarding provincial forest cover, fire danger, source water volume, source-water origin (i.e., forested/un-forested), and population served. We found that (1) >2/3 of the population of the province relies on drinking-water supplies originating in forested watersheds, (2) forest cover is the most important variable controlling final exposure scores, and (3) watersheds supplying small drinking water treatment plants are particularly exposed, especially in central Alberta. The index can help regional authorities prioritize the allocation of risk management resources to mitigate adverse impacts from wildfire. The flexible design of this tool readily allows its deployment at larger national and continental scales to inform broader water security frameworks.
Highlights
Increasing rates of global environmental change have contributed to widespread water-security challenges [1]
On a flow/population weighted basis, these data indicate that 50% of people in Alberta are completely reliant on drinking water from forested sources
Our model relies on a minimum amount of data related to the location of drinking-water utilities and their consumers, water yield per unit area, percent related to the location of drinking-water utilities and their consumers, water yield per unit area, percent forest cover, and fire danger
Summary
Increasing rates of global environmental change have contributed to widespread water-security challenges [1]. Many studies have illustrated post-fire impacts on soil hydraulic properties and runoff [9,10,11], sediment and nutrient concentrations [12,13], and the occurrence of floods and debris flows [14]. Such perturbations can threaten the reliability of downstream water supply for community needs [15,16], with some of these impacts lasting for a decade or more [17,18]
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