CBC News - A drying delta
Industry and climate change are affecting water levels in the Peace-Athabasca Delta. A new feature article by CBC News analyzes these impacts, and explores the ways that Indigenous peoples of the Delta are adapting to these changes. Some are adopting various adaptation measures to ensure they can continue their way of life, while others are increasing their efforts to share indigenous knowledge with new generations (and the scientific community) to help understand these changes. All are relying to some degree on a measure of resilience to help chart a path through an uncertain future.
Changes to the water systems at the heart of the Peace-Athabasca Delta are manifesting in several ways, including noticeably lower flow rates and increased water temperatures. Fewer ice-jam floods are also significantly impacting recharge rates, i.e. the rate at which groundwater is recharged from overland flooding. Higher air temperatures are also resulting in higher evapotranspiration rates. Overall, increased evapotranspiration and decreased flows are resulting in lower water levels, which are negatively impacting the area’s rich bounty of fish and wildlife. Lower water levels are also making transportation through the delta more challenging. In the warm months, decreased water depth makes it harder to navigate waterways, and restricts the types/size of boats suitable to the area. In the winter, less ice is forming, which means fewer days of safe travel on the ice roads used in the region.
Understanding is the key to adapting, and it is our hope that Canada 1 Water will help communities across Canada - including indigenous peoples in the Peace-Athabasca Delta and elsewhere - to better understand the changes that climate change is having on their water systems.
Click here to read the feature on CBC News.
“With the changing environment, we — as human beings — we have to start adapting,” he says. “We see the impacts of our activities, of manipulating the land. I know the water’s going down, it’s going down all over the world,” he says.
Even the prospect of a shortened ice-road season doesn’t faze him. The remote community is used to planning ahead, he says. It’s another opportunity for adaptation, a lesson others should embrace.
“You have to do something about the changing environment,” he says. “Because it’s not going to stop no matter how much you complain.”
“Industry has been the main driver of change in the region, such as water used by the oilsands or changes in flow caused by the dams. But now another factor is in play: climate change.
The effects of climate change are already more pronounced in northern Canada. Annual average temperatures in the region have increased by 2.3 degrees — more than twice the global average — since the mid-20th century.”