Your Voice Matters: Share Groundwater Concerns in Online Survey
By Contributor
Groundwater is needed in the Columbia Basin for a multitude of reasons. It’s a crucial freshwater source for domestic, agricultural, industrial, and commercial purposes. It’s connected to surface waters and helps maintain water levels in wetlands, streams, rivers, and lakes. It is essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems, including habitat for fish, waterfowl, and wildlife.
Careful management and allocation of groundwater is becoming increasingly important as populations continue to grow, demand increases, and pressures such as climate change intensify.
However, a lack of understanding of groundwater systems is a problem. This lack of understanding has led to groundwater depletion across the United States (New York Times, 2023), and recent droughts have raised concerns about the sustainability of groundwater supply within the Columbia Basin (Living Lakes Canada, 2023).
Aquifers are the underground layers of rock or sediment that hold groundwater. Across Canada, aquifers vary in size and complexity. In the mountainous regions of the Columbia Basin, many aquifers are small and fragmented, and respond differently to changing climate conditions, groundwater withdrawals, and different land uses like logging.
More data is needed to understand how groundwater is responding to these changes to ensure a sustainable supply is available for people and nature. Groundwater data can be used to analyze and forecast water level trends, inform water management decisions, and guide conservation efforts.
Living Lakes Canada, together with groundwater experts, are calling for a Columbia Basin Aquifer Assessment and invite the public to participate in an online survey to share insights and concerns regarding groundwater in their area. The feedback collected will play a crucial role in building momentum behind the request for an aquifer assessment, ensuring that decision makers have a comprehensive understanding of the challenges facing groundwater and the actions needed to address them.
By taking just a few minutes to complete the survey, you can contribute to the collective effort to safeguard groundwater for generations to come.
To complete the survey, visit https://survey123.arcgis.com/
For questions regarding the survey or groundwater monitoring in general, please contact Paige Thurston, Columbia Basin Program Manager, at paige@livinglakescanada.ca.
To learn more about the Living Lakes Canada Groundwater Monitoring Program, visit: https://livinglakescanada.ca/
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