{"id":84686,"date":"2025-08-20T22:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T22:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/84686\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T22:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T22:11:07","slug":"canadas-severe-drought-is-a-sign-of-future-climate-conditions-and-calls-for-action-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/84686\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s severe drought is a sign of future climate conditions and calls for action, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A water storage area near farmland at Westcoast Vegetables in Delta, B.C., March, 2024. Canada is home to 20 per cent of the world\u2019s freshwater but less than half of it is naturally renewed through the hydrological cycle.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Canada must prepare for more seasons marked by severe drought, experts say as this summer\u2019s bone-dry conditions tormented farmers, strained municipal water supply and fuelled one of the worst wildfire seasons on record. <\/p>\n

Seventy-one per cent of the country was either abnormally dry or under drought conditions as of the end of July, according to the federal government\u2019s drought monitor released last week. <\/p>\n

Drought-stricken communities across the country have urged residents to cut back on water and some have instituted outright bans on most outdoor water activities to help preserve their drinking water. <\/p>\n

What has stood out about this year is just how widespread those drought conditions have become, said John Pomeroy, one of Canada\u2019s leading hydrologists. The only other year in recent memory when drought was so widespread was 2023, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a coast-to-coast-to-coast drought. So that\u2019s quite exceptional,\u201d said Mr. Pomeroy, the director of the Global Water Futures Observatories project at the University of Saskatchewan. He called the \u201cbone-dry\u201d conditions in typically wet Newfoundland and Nova Scotia \u201cmind-boggling.\u201d<\/p>\n

As climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is expected to increase the likelihood and severity of drought, experts say Canada needs to accelerate the transition to clean energy while also increasing the country\u2019s resilience to these extremes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis year is a sign, a signal of the types of conditions we will experience more frequently and that we need to be prepared for moving forward,\u201d said Ryan Ness, the director of adaptation research at the Canadian Climate Institute think tank.<\/p>\n

\u201cWater efficiency is going to be critical \u2013 making the best use out of the water that we have rather than, say, spraying it away to water lawns in urban areas.\u201d <\/p>\n

Canada is home to 20 per cent of the world\u2019s freshwater but less than half of it is naturally renewed through the hydrological cycle. It\u2019s otherwise tied up in glaciers and underground aquifers, or large lakes where replenishment is slow. <\/p>\n

East Coast drought fuels wildfires, dries up farms and wells<\/a><\/p>\n

More than half of the renewable freshwater, meanwhile, flows north to the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay, putting it out of reach to the vast majority of Canada\u2019s population. What remains, while still abundant, is \u201cheavily used and often overly stressed,\u201d the federal government says. <\/p>\n

Climate change is adding to that stress, studies show. The threat of drought is likely to increase across many regions of the country, including the already drought-prone Prairies and interior British Columbia. It\u2019s also expected to lead to earlier and faster snowmelt, drying out basins that depend on that water. <\/p>\n

\u201cCanada is often seen as a land of endless water, with countless lakes, rivers and water. But we should be careful,\u201d said University of Ottawa\u2019s Hossein Bonakdari, who has studied climate change and drought risks. <\/p>\n

Beyond the tap, this year\u2019s drought impacts are being felt in Canada\u2019s farm fields, its forests, and its depleted hydropower stations. <\/p>\n

Dry conditions have contributed to Canada\u2019s second-worst wildfire<\/a> season on record, dating back to the early 1970s. The fires have burned through an area slightly larger than New Brunswick. <\/p>\n

Opinion: As northern Canada burns, southern Canada makes climate change worse<\/a><\/p>\n

In Manitoba, where large swathes of the province are under extreme drought, the major hydro utility says its system inflows are the lowest recorded in the past 40 years for this time of year. <\/p>\n

Manitoba Hydro says it can meet its energy demand under the lowest-recorded drought conditions, but it\u2019s too early to say how another year of drought may impact its finances. Last year, citing drought conditions, the provincial Crown corporation reported a $157-million loss in part because there was less of its energy to export and it had to import power to meet its requirements. <\/p>\n

In the fields, while most of the Prairies\u2019 spring-planted crops are forecasted by Agriculture Canada to have solid yields this year, the drought has been ruinous in some hard-hit areas. <\/p>\n

Some rural municipalities have declared agricultural disasters and famers have had to sell their herds or haul in water to satiate thirsty livestock in some drought-stricken areas, said David Lee, the manager of the federal government\u2019s National Agriculture Climate Information Service.<\/p>\n

While some of those areas have seen conditions improve since the end of July, many of the crops are already too far along for recent rainfall to make a difference, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a long time to get there; it\u2019s going to take a long time to go back out,\u201d Mr. Lee said of places afflicted by multiyear drought, such as northern Saskatchewan. <\/p>\n

Prairie farmers face ninth year of droughts, killing crops and reducing yields<\/a><\/p>\n

There are many ways Canada can become more resilient to drought, said Mr. Ness, the adaptation director at the Canadian Climate Institute. <\/p>\n

Governments should support farmers to develop drought plans and incorporate water-efficient agriculture, he said. Communities should be adopting more wildfire prevention design guidelines. Wetlands must be protected, he said.<\/p>\n

Canada is also seeing a surge in energy-intensive artificial intelligence data centres that use significant amounts of waters for cooling. The recent drought conditions highlight the importance of carefully considering water availability in large industrial and infrastructure investment decisions, said Mr. Ness.<\/p>\n

Yet, \u201cthe most important thing that we need to do to mitigate this growing drought risk is reduce greenhouse gas emissions,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to get on top of it as soon as possible by both preparing and adapting but also ultimately cutting off those emissions that are continuing to make the problem worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Droughts can also worsen the impacts of extreme rainfall when it eventually hits, said Mr. Pomeroy, the hydrologist. Drought kills off vegetation and dries out soil, leading to less water absorption and more runoff, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo that is unfortunately what they should already be thinking about preparing for in Eastern Canada, now is what comes next,\u201d said Mr. Pomeroy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A water storage area near farmland at Westcoast Vegetables in Delta, B.C., March,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-84686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}