What does Community Resiliency look like for Drinking Water?

Safe, secure drinking water is one of the three main goals of Alberta’s Water for Life strategy. The Athabasca Watershed Council has adapted this goal into our Integrated Watershed Management Plan. In order to achieve this goal, we need to know the current state of drinking water in the watershed. Virtually all residents in the Athabasca watershed have access to clean drinking water with no long-term water advisories, but we’d also like to know how resilient community drinking water supplies are across the watershed, and ensure that we’re protecting our source water.

The Athabasca Watershed Council is pleased to be supporting SAIT’s Integrated Water Management Program. Laura Nethery, a 2nd year SAIT student in the program, investigated Community Drinking Water Resiliency in the Athabasca watershed as her Capstone project. She prepared and sent out a survey to Mayors, Chiefs, Reeves and other Chief Administrative Officers working in communities across the Athabasca watershed. After receiving some responses, she prepared a final report, which can be viewed here.

We hope to move the project forward in the future, and we have been looking to the work produced by other organizations and individuals. The University of Alberta’s Adaptation Resilience Training (ART) program has been doing relevant work with regards to resiliency. The ART program partners students with host organizations for 8-month internship programs dedicated to helping Albertan organizations understand and mitigate future climate risks.