An impending water crisis in Canada's western prairie provinces
Canada is usually considered to be a country with abundant freshwater, but in its western prairie provinces (WPP), an area 1/5 the size of Europe, freshwater is scarce. European settlement of the WPP did not begin until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fortuitously, the period since European...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:1564278 2023-05-15T16:22:26+02:00 An impending water crisis in Canada's western prairie provinces Schindler, D. W. Donahue, W. F. 2006-05-09 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1564278 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16606829 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0601568103 en eng National Academy of Sciences http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1564278 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16606829 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0601568103 © 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA Physical Sciences Text 2006 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0601568103 2013-08-31T06:32:31Z Canada is usually considered to be a country with abundant freshwater, but in its western prairie provinces (WPP), an area 1/5 the size of Europe, freshwater is scarce. European settlement of the WPP did not begin until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fortuitously, the period since European settlement appears to have been the wettest century of the past two millennia. The frequent, long periods of drought that characterized earlier centuries of the past two millennia were largely absent in the 20th century. Here, we show that climate warming and human modifications to catchments have already significantly reduced the flows of major rivers of the WPP during the summer months, when human demand and in-stream flow needs are greatest. We predict that in the near future climate warming, via its effects on glaciers, snowpacks, and evaporation, will combine with cyclic drought and rapidly increasing human activity in the WPP to cause a crisis in water quantity and quality with far-reaching implications. Text glacier* PubMed Central (PMC) Canada Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 19 7210 7216 |
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English |
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Physical Sciences |
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Physical Sciences Schindler, D. W. Donahue, W. F. An impending water crisis in Canada's western prairie provinces |
topic_facet |
Physical Sciences |
description |
Canada is usually considered to be a country with abundant freshwater, but in its western prairie provinces (WPP), an area 1/5 the size of Europe, freshwater is scarce. European settlement of the WPP did not begin until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fortuitously, the period since European settlement appears to have been the wettest century of the past two millennia. The frequent, long periods of drought that characterized earlier centuries of the past two millennia were largely absent in the 20th century. Here, we show that climate warming and human modifications to catchments have already significantly reduced the flows of major rivers of the WPP during the summer months, when human demand and in-stream flow needs are greatest. We predict that in the near future climate warming, via its effects on glaciers, snowpacks, and evaporation, will combine with cyclic drought and rapidly increasing human activity in the WPP to cause a crisis in water quantity and quality with far-reaching implications. |
format |
Text |
author |
Schindler, D. W. Donahue, W. F. |
author_facet |
Schindler, D. W. Donahue, W. F. |
author_sort |
Schindler, D. W. |
title |
An impending water crisis in Canada's western prairie provinces |
title_short |
An impending water crisis in Canada's western prairie provinces |
title_full |
An impending water crisis in Canada's western prairie provinces |
title_fullStr |
An impending water crisis in Canada's western prairie provinces |
title_full_unstemmed |
An impending water crisis in Canada's western prairie provinces |
title_sort |
impending water crisis in canada's western prairie provinces |
publisher |
National Academy of Sciences |
publishDate |
2006 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1564278 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16606829 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0601568103 |
geographic |
Canada |
geographic_facet |
Canada |
genre |
glacier* |
genre_facet |
glacier* |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1564278 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16606829 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0601568103 |
op_rights |
© 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0601568103 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
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103 |
container_issue |
19 |
container_start_page |
7210 |
op_container_end_page |
7216 |
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1766010416107880448 |