Abstract
Abstract. While there is a popular perception that Canada is a water-rich country, the Saskatchewan River basin (SRB) in Western Canada exemplifies the multiple threats to water security seen worldwide. It is Canada's major food-producing region and home to globally significant natural resource development. The SRB faces current water challenges stemming from (1) a series of extreme events, including major flood and drought events since the turn of the 21st century, (2) full allocation of existing water resources in parts of the basin, (3) rapid population growth and economic development, (4) increasing pollution, and (5) fragmented and overlapping governance that includes the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, various Federal and First Nations responsibilities, and international boundaries. The interplay of these factors has increased competition for water across economic sectors and among provinces, between upstream and downstream users, between environmental flows and human needs, and among people who hold different values about the meaning, ownership, and use of water. These current challenges are set in a context of significant environmental and societal change, including widespread land modification, rapid urbanization, resource exploitation, climate warming, and deep uncertainties about future water supplies. We use Sivapalan et al.'s (2012) framework of socio-hydrology to argue that the SRB's water security challenges are symptoms of dynamic and complex water systems approaching critical thresholds and tipping points. To Sivapalan et al.'s (2012) emphasis on water cycle dynamics, we add the need for governance mechanisms to manage emergent systems and translational science to link science and policy to the socio-hydrology agenda.
Highlights
In a recent article in Hydrological Processes, Sivapalan et al (2012) called for a new science of water that treats humans and their activities as endogenous features of the water cycle, interacting with the system through water consumption for their personal needs, food, and energy, and through pollution, policies, markets, and technologies
We examine the Saskatchewan River basin (SRB) in Western Canada from a socio-hydrological perspective: first by describing its geographic context in both human and biophysical terms, by outlining the complex challenges to water security linking human activities and natural systems, and by highlighting the importance of anticipatory governance and evidence-based decision-making for rapidly changing water systems
Increasing evidence indicates that the environmental systems that support large-scale urbanization and commercial agriculture, and produce oil and gas to power the USA and China, are being altered by anthropogenic climate change
Summary
In a recent article in Hydrological Processes, Sivapalan et al (2012) called for a new science of water that treats humans and their activities as endogenous features of the water cycle, interacting with the system through water consumption for their personal needs, food, and energy, and through pollution, policies, markets, and technologies. We examine the Saskatchewan River basin (SRB) in Western Canada from a socio-hydrological perspective: first by describing its geographic context in both human and biophysical terms, by outlining the complex challenges to water security linking human activities and natural systems, and by highlighting the importance of anticipatory governance and evidence-based decision-making for rapidly changing water systems
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