Opinion: Water for our world

Is this dry year going to seem like a wet one in our parched future?

Alberta Farmer

Written By: Brenda Schoepp

Published: December 18th, 2023

Photo Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

The disruption of water systems started long ago with the ridding of our industrious engineers who understood hydrology and the importance of water. They built dams that stored water behind and below their structures and in doing so preserved, purified and regenerated this essential resource.

Canada’s beavers are symbolic for an important reason. They remain the ultimate representatives of conservation, even as they and their lodges are threatened in a system of watershed and ultimately wetland destruction. The harvest of the beaver for pelts, the opening of land for other uses and blowing up dams, had an impact on our wetlands and contributes to current day climate change.

Farming, forestry, mining, oil, gas and other resource development, recreation, manufacturing and urban development all contributed to the demise of natural renewable systems. Solving the problem is complex and may take generations to fully appreciate. And what is clearly not understood is the intersection of all things – how systems work and are interdependent.

Pointing a withered finger at agriculture as the culprit doesn’t hold ground because we are only a speck on the landscape. Only 4.3 per cent of Canadian soil is currently arable. The rest of the disturbance and destruction has come from those outside ag and with the exception of flatland river sheds, from those activities often located at higher elevations.

It starts with watershed destruction that often leads to erosion, plant invasion and hotter soil. Every living thing becomes impacted thereafter, as families of trees are uprooted and the orchestrated activity of biodiversity is ripped apart, jeopardizing water retention.

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