Temporal and Spatial Scale Community Level Water Use in Saskatchewan

Abstract

Water is being recognized as an increasingly valuable natural resource, requiring evermore complex and challenging decision-making. Forecasts under probable scenarios have the potential to inform development of comprehensive water management strategies. This study was conducted to determine the current and future community level (domestic plus municipal) water use across Saskatchewan, fewer than three different scenarios: business as usual, climate change, and water conservation. These water uses were estimated at four different temporal scales-2010, 2020, 2040, 2060, as well as at three different spatial scales-community, river basin and province. The methodology for the estimation of these water uses was designed by estimating population for various communities and their respective water use on a per capita basis, with adjusted water use coefficients for the climate change and conservation scenarios. Trend analysis was undertaken using time series data for the period 1995 to 2009. Results indicate that in 2010 a total of 166,919 dam3 (equivalent to 44,158 U.S. gallons) of water was required to meet these uses which would increase to 206,530 dam3 (or 54,638 U.S. gallons) by 2060-an increase of 23.7%. Furthermore, climate change could bring forth a further increase in this use of nearly 6% over the baseline scenario by 2060, while with adoption of water conservation practices, the 2060 level of community water use could be reduced by 12.5%.