forWater: NSERC Network for Forested Drinking Water Source Protection Technologies

饮用水是社会最关键的水需求之一，提供安全饮用水是国家战略重点。大多数加拿大人刚刚意识到这一重要资源是多么脆弱，以及气候变化和高昂的能源成本可能对饮用水安全造成的潜在灾难性影响。为了减少对公众健康的风险，加拿大卫生部依靠“多屏障方法”来防止或减少饮用水从源头到水龙头的污染。该框架的所有变体都确定了用于风险预防的水源保护（SWP）和用于风险管理的厂内处理技术。值得注意的是，该框架中的所有障碍都必须有效，以确保饮用水安全。与气候变化相关的干扰（野火、飓风、洪水）表明，目前实施的多屏障方法存在惊人的不足。这些干扰导致源质量越来越不稳定或恶化，并对超出设计和操作响应能力的厂内处理技术提出挑战，直至服务中断。水行业的共识指出，迫切需要新的SWP技术来适应气候变化，以确保社区水系统的安全。在加拿大，有效的SWP必须关注森林水源流域，因为这是大多数城市、农村和土著社区饮用水的来源。健康的森林通常产出高质量的水——全球森林自然储存和过滤水的价值估计为4.1万亿美元。森林管理方法已被建议作为SWP技术，包括间伐或规定焚烧，以先发制人地减少风险或减轻潜在灾难性干扰的反应性影响。虽然森林管理对水的影响已经得到了很好的研究，但几乎没有任何工作专门关注饮用水的可处理性，这可能会因地区而异。forWater网络将提供关于不同森林管理策略对饮用水源质量和可处理性的影响的新知识，以评估其作为SWP技术在加拿大主要生态/森林地区的适用性。

Drinking water is one of society's most critical water needs and delivery of safe drinking water-security-is anational strategic priority. Most Canadians are just becoming aware how fragile this essential resource is andthe potentially catastrophic effects climate change and high energy costs can have on drinking water security.To reduce risks to public health, Health Canada relies on the "multi-barrier approach" to prevent or reduce thecontamination of drinking water from source to tap. All variations of this framework identify source waterprotection (SWP) for risk prevention and in-plant treatment technologies for risk management. Notably, all ofthe barriers in this framework must be effective to ensure drinking water security. Climate change-associateddisturbances (wildfires, hurricanes, floods) have revealed alarming inadequacies in current implementations ofthe multi-barrier approach. These disturbances are causing increasingly variable or deteriorated source quality,and challenging in-plant treatment technologies beyond design and operational response capacities, to the pointof service disruptions. Water industry consensus points to the pressing need for new SWP technologies forclimate change adaptation to ensure secure community water systems. In Canada, effective SWP must focus onforested source watersheds because that is where the drinking water for most urban, rural, and Indigenouscommunities originates. Healthy forests typically produce high quality water-the value of natural storage andfiltration of water by global forests has been estimated at $4.1 trillion. Forest management approaches havebeen suggested as SWP technologies and include thinning or prescribed burning for pre-emptive risk reductionor reactive effects mitigation of potentially catastrophic disturbances. While forest management impacts onwater have been well studied, little if any of that work has focused specifically on drinking water treatability,which will likely vary in regionally. The forWater Network will provide new knowledge regarding the impactsof different forest management strategies on drinking water source quality and treatability to assess theirsuitability as SWP technologies across the major ecological/forest regions of Canada.