The Alberta Water Council (AWC) is a collaborative partnership that provides leadership, expertise, and sector knowledge and perspectives to help governments, Indigenous Peoples, industry, and non-governmental organizations to advance the outcomes of the Government of Alberta’s Water for Life strategy.
Source water protection (SWP) is a risk management process designed to maintain or improve the conditions of water through proactive and collaborative identification, validation, assessment, and management of risk. Source water is untreated, raw water from surface or groundwater sources used for drinking water or other uses. A source watershed/aquifer is the area of land that contributes water to the source.
In 2018, the AWC formed a project team to provide guidance on protecting sources of drinking water in Alberta. The project included surveying drinking water providers and assessing SWP practices, processes, risks, and initiatives in Alberta. Results of the project supported development of a “Guide to Source Water Protection Planning”, and the “Protecting Sources of Drinking Water in Alberta Companion Document.”
The Guide lays out six steps to help drinking water providers develop SWP plans in collaboration with other key groups in their source water area. The companion report summarizes information to be considered when protecting public, private, and individual drinking water sources in Alberta. Over 670 drinking water systems are regulated by Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP), most of which serve small municipalities of 1,500 residents, or less. AEP regulates municipal systems and a portion of non-municipal systems, which combined serve about 85 percent of Alberta’s population. The majority of remaining Albertans get their drinking water from systems regulated by Alberta Health Services, Alberta Health, or federal agencies (e.g., Indigenous Services Canada). Although Drinking Water Safety Plans (DWSPs) are mandatory for water systems regulated by AEP, they may lack the attention and level of detail needed to effectively assess and mitigate risks to drinking water sources.
The new Source Water Protection Phase I: Risk Assessment Tools and Data Project Team intends to build on the steps of SWP planning outlined in the Guide, specifically Step 1, “Involve key groups and create a vision” and Step 2, “Characterize your Source Water Area”.
This project scope is intended to address gaps in characterizing source water by developing a web-based tool that brings together the data (e.g., land use/cover, stressors, water quality, and water quantity) and assesses the state of source water supply and quality as well as how current and future land use activities could affect sources of drinking water.
