Canada1Water Project Featured by NRCan - How will climate change impact Canada’s water resources?
“You need big-picture data to make big-picture decisions, Canada1Water provides that by stitching thousands of datapoints into an integrated model that shows how groundwater and surface water levels could change all across the country over the next 75 years.”
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), the department of the Government of Canada responsible for natural resources, energy, minerals and metals, forests, earth sciences, mapping, and remote sensing- featured the Canada1Water project in their latest article.
In the race to adapt to climate change, being able to anticipate future trends is critical. This requires good models built on reliable data. After three years of intense research and development, the first full-scale simulation of how climate change could impact groundwater and surface water resources in Canada is now available. This new model — called Canada1Water (C1W) — provides a science-based view to the end of the century.
Water is essential for life on Earth, and its declining availability due to climate change affects everything from health and food security to the economy and geopolitical stability. Groundwater is particularly vital since it feeds at least half of all surface water sources, including streams, rivers, and lakes. However, assessing groundwater supplies is challenging because it collects underground, making it difficult to measure.
A significant part of the C1W project involved bridging these information gaps. Understanding these trends is invaluable for community development, infrastructure planning, wildfire management, and food production.
To find out how Canada1Water has the potential to drive significant change and shape a more resilient water future for Canada, we encourage you to read the rest of this feature on the NRcan website linked below.
Click here to read the article.
“Being able to explore the hydrological cycle interactively from the local level up to continental scale will reveal hydro-climate interdependencies like never before.”
People can access C1W online to work with the simulation results. Here are just a few of the datasets available: water depth to bedrock, surficial geology and landcover type.
“When you look at the range of skillsets and knowledge we have on this project — with people from government, the private sector and academia — you see how complex hydrology really is”
Decision-makers, researchers and the public can access C1W for free online to work with the simulation results, zooming in on specific regions or zooming out for a complete nationwide view from coast to coast to coast.