CWN’s climate program advances mitigation, adaptation and resiliency strategies to enable action on the long-term security of our water resources and water servicing for our communities.  Join us at Blue Cities to hear updates on water security, adaptation and mitigation strategies for the water sector.

Securing Canada’s water future with adaptation and mitigation strategies

Through CWN’s water security project, in partnership with Dr. Dave Sauchyn at the Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative and sponsored by RBC’s Tech for Nature, water availability combined with rising temperatures across the prairies will continue to impact crop yield, first in a positive way, and then negatively over time due to warming temperatures. The impact on water availability across the prairies will not just affect our agriculture sector. Other large water users, such as municipal water supply, will necessitate the need for more and stronger collaboration. Join us at Blue Cities to share your experience and insights in the session, Securing Canada’s Water Future: Strategies for Availability and Demand Management, moderated by Kate Polkovsky, CEO of ARROW Utilities. This session will bring together perspectives on water availability across Canada, including demand management through conservation, reuse strategies that do not impact downstream users and adaptive approaches that can be used in times of drought.

Bringing the public and private sectors together to tackle greenhouse gas mitigation in municipal water servicing is at the core of CWN’s Net Zero Water project, funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Implementation Readiness Fund and in-kind contributions from many partners. CWN is advancing the knowledge and know-how needed to move greenhouse gas mitigation strategies within municipal water servicing departments and water utilities through the document, “Guidance for Canadian Municipal Water Utilities to Develop a Net Zero Roadmap.” Look for this document on March 31 our new webpage, which shares case studies, snapshots and news about the project. Better yet, join us at Blue Cities for our session that profiles municipal water servicing projects that reduce GHGs, save money and build resiliency in utilities.

How can water utilities plan effectively for a future that is inherently unpredictable?  This is the question that CWN, with support from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), is addressing through its Adaptive Planning project. CWN is bringing world leaders on this topic to Blue Cities — join the discussion!

Now, more than ever, change is a certainty. Conventional models and planning are no longer sufficient to assess potential futures and create responsive and adjustable plans. Adaptive planning is emerging as a preferred approach to decision-making to address future uncertainties like growth and development, finance, climate change and regulations. Adaptive planning considers and models different scenarios to develop actions or pathways based on likely or possible future circumstances. The approach breaks adaptation actions into key decision points over the long-term, enabling adjustments to be made based on how the future unfolds, thereby reducing the risk of insufficient or inappropriate investments.

Drawing on international best practices, CWN is leading the development of Canadian-based guidance and resources to help municipal water utilities implement adaptive planning practices.