By Cheryl Jahn

March 22 is World Water Day

Mar 21, 2025 | 4:11 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – World Water Day celebrates water and inspires action to tackle the global water crisis. According to the United Nations most recent World Water Development Report, freshwater usage has grown by just under 1 per cent per year.

“The main driver will be population growth. Obviously, the global population keeps increasing year after year, so definitely more people means more water being used,” says UNBC Hydrometeorologist, Dr. Stephen Dery. ” But also we can talk about agriculture, agriculture intensifying. So it is more used for irrigation and industrial use as well. So there are a lot of reasons why obviously freshwater use is increasing over time.”

Twenty per cent of the world’s freshwater is in Canada.

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“Freshwater renews but not as fast as we actually consume it,” explains Dr. Annie Booth with UNBC’s Environmental and Sustainable Studies. “And in addition to having the world’s biggest supply of water. Canada happens to be one of the world’s wasters. It doesn’t look as much up against a bigger country with more people in it, but per capita by the number of individuals. We really waste freshwater because we don’t really see it as valuable.”

Climate change is becoming more acutely understood and, while the impact on water temperature is obvious, there are other ways it impacts fresh water.

“So climate change is impacting the availability of water resources through precipitation and also through evaporation. So if we have warmer temperatures in the summer, that typically will tend to evaporate more water, leaving less water on the surface,” explains Dr. Dery. “So climate change is a big driver in terms of surface water availability.” .