water

In Alberta, Canada’s freewheeling, economic success story, a market-based economy rules. So it’s not surprising that in 2002, the Alberta government chose to counter growing water problems in Southern Alberta with the province’s first water market. In anticipation, Theodore Horbyluk, an economist at the University of Calgary, said he believed the new system would effectively “transform historical licences into marketable commodities.” And in Southern Alberta, where some 20,000 licences make claims on water, there is considerable history to market. ...

To read the full reports from the Water Soft Path project, please visit Friends of the Earth Canada’s website www.foecanada.org and click on Campaigns >Universal Water Security. ...

The single most important characteristic of a water soft path is that it is about sustainability as a new, additional and explicit goal for water management. Unlike traditional water planning, the soft path takes into account the water requirements for in situ functions of the natural resource. This new perspective acknowledges the vital importance of maintaining ecological “services” like nutrient cycling and aquatic habitat, as well as on-site uses such as boating and hydroelectric power production.

Throughout history, water management has meant constructing dams, digging and drilling wells, and extending canals and pipelines into cities and farmers’ fields. Industrialized nations have been spectacularly successful at delivering vast amounts of water wherever and whenever it was required. In wealthy countries, water has been readily available to humans, their farms, factories and power-generating stations, with sufficient quantities left over for gardens, parks and swimming pools. Imagine Las Vegas. ...