Fit to drink — and that’s the problem

Oliver M. Brandes, Research Associate – Urban Water Demand Management - POLIS Project, University of Victoria

Water, water everywhere, and all of it fit to drink — and this is a problem? It certainly can be, especially when one considers that Canadians are, after Americans, global leaders in water use. This high level of water use is exacerbated by the fact that there really is no such thing as drinking water in Canada. All our city water is treated to drinking water standards, whether we flush it down the toilet, wash our cars with it, irrigate the lawn, or drink it. This is the same clean water that much of the world covets, and the absence of which leads to literally thousands of deaths worldwide every day.

Municipal water use represents 12% of overall water use in Canada, ranking behind thermal power plants and manufacturing. With a range of supply problems, many residents are faced with water shortages or use restrictions. Billions of dollars are needed to simply maintain water and wastewater systems. This estimate will only increase with the expected population growth and corresponding increase in the diversity of urban water uses.1

“Flushing the Future? Examining urban water use in Canada,” a recent report by the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at the University of Victoria, examines urban water use and has found that per capita water use in Canadian cities exceeds that of most other industrialized countries, and is rising. Even within Canada, there is high variance of water use (see chart) with little obvious correlation between levels of use and geography or relative sectoral use mix. Wastage and inefficient use results in over-extended regional water supplies and supporting infrastructure, and also has profound ecological implications associated with the need to increase supply through dams, dikes, levees and other diversions.

The average Canadian city dweller uses a staggering 589 litres of water per day, and all of it drinking water quality. A huge portion of this water goes almost directly down the drain or onto our lawns, with the single largest interior use of fresh water (about 40%) being flushed down the toilet. In summer, maintaining green lawns and gardens can triple residential use, right in the heart of the driest periods of the year (May to October).With lower municipal reservoir levels observed in recent years, water restrictions and prohibitions are common.

As all of this is fresh and clean water, managing water quantity is clearly linked to maintaining water quality. After Walkerton, much of the focus has been on quality. Treating large quantities of water for all uses to drinking water standards unnecessarily increases the costs of providing water for those uses where quality is most important (drinking, bathing and food preparation).

Referring to water supply issues, The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has stated, “ The availability and management of freshwater is becoming one of the greatest environmental, social, and political challenges of the 21st Century.” To respond to this challenge “Flushing the Future?” emphasizes the potential of demand-side management (DSM) in Canada as an alternative to traditional approaches focused on increasing supply infrastructure. DSM involves decreasing the demand for water, through a mix of education, pricing reform, regulation and recycling. Ultimately, DSM can generate cost savings and delay the need for costly construction associated with increasing supply, and also holds the potential to reduce pressure on freshwater ecosystems by reducing the amount of water cities withdraw (and put back in a degraded state) from the environment.

The full report is available at www.polisproject.org, or by contacting the POLIS Project at (250) 721 6388, or by email at polis@uvic.ca.

Click on image for full-size chart

1 Over half the water in municipal systems supplies residential consumption, which increased by nearly 23% between 1983 and 1994, despite an increase of less than 16% in municipal population served water. [Environment Canada – State of Canada’s Environment 1996-Chapter 12 – Water use and Wastewater treatment]