The science is telling us that water is moving through the water cycle at an accelerating pace, fundamentally changing weather and precipitation patterns.
Evidence of such change in Canada is mounting, with more frequent and extreme damage from floods, droughts and wildfires. A changing climate and a disrupted hydrological cycle also amplify the negative effects of development and pollution on river basins and are damaging aquatic life in our waterways from coast to coast to coast.
The impacts of these rapid changes on water availability and quality are costly. They undermine ecosystem health and the function of world-class parks and protected areas, traditional and subsistence ways of life, built infrastructure and food and energy production.
The quality of drinking water supplies in rural and Indigenous communities has become massively degraded in recent decades leading to more than 100 drinking water advisories for reserves in Canada as of 2015, forcing some First Nations reserves to boil water, pay for water delivery or haul it from a water filling station.
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