Drinking Water Security and Climate Change Adaptation in Canada: Evaluating Forest Management and Disturbance Impacts on Treatability

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The drinking water for more than 58% of the largest urban communities in Canada originates in forested watersheds. The health of Canada’s forests and the waters they supply is threatened by numerous pressures, including potentially severe threats from climate change that cause increasingly variable and deteriorated water quality. This can overwhelm treatment processes and push them beyond their design capacity, necessitating potentially cost-prohibitive changes in treatment to ensure provision of safe drinking water. The value of natural storage and filtration of water by global forests has been estimated at $4.1 trillion (US) and so, forested water resources are strategic priorities in Canada and globally. Thus, the delivery of safe drinking water—security—and its relationship to natural and anthropogenic activities in forested watersheds is a critical priority. Forest disturbances (e.g. wildfires, hurricanes) can be potentially catastrophic for drinking water supply and treatment; as a result, there is an increased interest in forest management for source water protection (SWP). While forests are managed for many purposes, they are not currently managed for protection of drinking water supplies. While the impacts of forest disturbance and management on water have been well studied,