Government▼Watch Climate change threatens Canadian water supply
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director general of the National Water Research Institute (NWRI) and one of the report authors. The first comprehensive assessment ronment Canada, the federal environSummertime water shortages in of Canada’s water supply finds that mental protection agency. the west are likely to increase because climate change will trigger water Canada is the second-largest of receding glaciers and changes in shortages and changes in delivery of country in the world, but it receives their melting patterns, the report fresh water to the Arctic Ocean. This just 7% of the world’s supply of water finds. Climate change might also melt change could have worldthe permafrost, the soil frowide impacts, such as alterzen year-round, which will ing the deep ocean currents lead to profound but hardthat drive global climate to-predict impacts on Canapatterns. da’s Arctic, Carey says. Threats to Water Availa“Melting the permafrost bility in Canada details the will increase water infiltrastatus, trends, and information into the groundwater tion gaps related to 15 priorisystem,” adds Terry Prowse, ty threats to the water supply, research chair on climate including water diversions, impacts at the NWRI. InA new report predicts summertime water shortages in the west land-use practices, and clistead of running off into due to receding glaciers and changes in melting patterns. mate variability. It also recrivers, this water will be reommends more political tained on the landscape and leadership and funding. The increasin the form of snow and rain each have a greater potential to evaporate, ing strength of floods, droughts, and year, according to the report. CanaProwse says. severe storms in Canada over the past da’s main water source is non-renewThe report can be found at www. decade provided the impetus for the able, because it was generated during nwri.ca/threats2full/intro-e.html. study, released in March from Envithe Glacial Age, explains John Carey, —JANET PELLEY
EU funds African, Caribbean water cleanup At a meeting in Botswana in May, environmental ministers from countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific were set to endorse a European Union (EU)-funded program to improve clean water and sanitation in those countries. EU officials promised in March to provide up to $620 million ( 500 million), which will be used in part to leverage additional funds from financial institutions and the private sector. Known as the Water Facility, the program is part of the EU’s policy to aid developing countries, especially its commitment of halving the number of people worldwide without clean water and sanitation by 2015. Andre Liebaert of the European Commission’s development section explains that the facility will help fund the development of regulatory frameworks and the organizations that enforce them. For example, the program will assist governments in establishing water-monitoring policies, quality standards, and pricing mechanisms. A second component will provide seed capital for small projects, which can range from digging wells to providing education about hygiene. However, these projects should involve co-financing arrangements, says Liebaert: “Resources from development aid are not enough to finance the investment needed to provide everybody with safe drinking water. We
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need to optimize these resources by attracting investment from the private sector or from other bodies, such as financial institutions. This is not an ideological position. The only way to meet our target is to combine our resources with other sources.” “This is an important step forward, but it’s just scratching the surface,” says Stephen Turner, head of policy at the British charity and lobbying group WaterAid. “It’s just not enough money to meet the 2015 commitment.” Turner says he is skeptical that the private sector will offer much support to co-financing schemes. “In the past 10 years, there is no evidence in subSaharan Africa, at least, of attracting capital from the private sector. International companies see too much risk for too little return. I don’t know why the EU thinks this will change.” Some environmental groups are vehemently opposed to any private-sector involvement in developing water resources. For example, the World Development Movement, an organization that campaigns to reduce poverty, is concerned that shared projects may give more power to big water companies while reducing government control. The movement’s leaders say they fear that profit-driven companies will “turn water into a luxury the poor can’t afford.” —MARIA BURKE
© 2004 American Chemical Society
