Abstract
Source Water Protection (SWP) is the process of protecting a drinking water source through land use planning policies and land management activities. The risk of source water contamination is a human health concern even in developed countries such as Canada. Much of the existing SWP literature in the more developed world is centred on small and rural water systems with a focus on capacity needs to support SWP activities and planning. These capacity needs tend to centre on five key elements: political, financial, human, technical and legal. While these contributions have added value to the water resource planning literature in rural areas, there remains a noticeable gap in the literature with respect to SWP activities in metropolitan areas. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to report the kinds of source water threats facing metropolitan water systems in Canada; and, second, to explore the utility of the capacity literature with respect to SWP planning in metropolitan Canada.
Highlights
Safe drinking water is a basic human necessity
We investigate the utility of the capacity-building literature with respect to Source Water Protection (SWP) in metropolitan Canada
The results show two types of data: the first indicates the main risk to the respective city’s water supply with the purpose to identify the main actions or activities that could help mitigate those risks; second, to report the degree to which capacity factors found in the water resources literature apply to metropolitan SWP planning
Summary
Safe drinking water is a basic human necessity. water contamination remains a serious global issue. It is estimated that 90,000 illness and deaths occur globally every day due to contaminated drinking water [2]. In developed countries, such as Canada, drinking water contamination incidents regularly occur, albeit to a lesser extent than in developing countries. The water contamination event in 2000 at Walkerton, Ontario, resulted in seven deaths and 2300 illnesses. Other water contamination events resulting in illness and medical health treatment are well documented in urban Canada [3]. Many drinking water contamination events can be avoided through greater attention to land use practices aimed at the protection of public water supplies [4,5,6]. Source Water Protection (SWP) is recognized as the first barrier in the multi-barrier approach to reduce the risk of drinking water contamination
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