The Great Canadian Resource

Crisp, Cool and Refreshing

Most people would agree that Canada is a pretty good country to live in.  There are so many things available to its citizens in abundance, that they tend to get taken for granted.  Free Healthcare, decent (and straight!) roads, large supermarkets with many different ingredients that are open at insane hours, houses that are build to withstand below zero temperatures, and have central heating (this is so important to those of us who hate the cold) and loads of fresh water.

Canadians tend to take water for granted in a way that people of other countries cannot afford to.  And I am not referring to third world countries, where the addition of a well has the capacity to greatly improve the lives of a village. I am speaking of developed, first world countries, such as Australia and Greece, where getting water to their inhabitents is a problem.  Melbourne, for example needs to desalinate water and pipe it in from the ocean (84km away) to meet the demands of the city.  Detractors of the plant say that the environmental costs of such an operation are too high.

Unfortunately, Canadians are not as rich in water resources as they might think.  Only 7% of the world's fresh water can be found in our, admittedly rather large, country.  Then, there is the problem of the density belt.  About 84% of Canadians live within 160km of the U.S. border.  The greater part of the watershed, however, leads to the Arctic Circle.  Water is considered to be a renewable resource, as any schoolkid can tell you, thanks to the hydrological cycle.  Yet every time the water goes through the cycle, its quality may be lessened, to the point where it becomes unsafe for consumption or use.  Many cities have experienced droughts, especially in hot summers.  Canadians are urged to be water-wise, in both aspects of home and work.

Conservation in the Landscape

So how does conservation translate to the landscaping industry?  Over the next few weeks, I will be investigating different aspects of Xeriscaping, designing low water landscapes.  I will look at how it is achieved in other regions, and how it might be applied to the Canadian climate.  Will there be differences in how to proceed?  I will look at the hardscaping, the construction and the drainage involved.  Then I will look at drought-resistant plants, and the benefits of using native species.

The goal of this will be to apply all of this knowledge to designing a sustainable, low-water landscape in Drumheller, Alberta.  Hopefully this process will aid anyone who is interested in doing something similar in their own home, with the goal of conserving water.  It is not just the human species who depend on this resource, it is all living things.