Canadian Prairies
Canada's Prairies will face an unprecedented water crisis in coming years due to declining river flows and growing water usage especially in processing Alberta's vast oil sands. Summer flows in Prairie rivers are already 20 to 80 percent lower than in the early part of the 20th century.
Worst affected is the South Saskatchewan River, whose summer flows have been reduced by 84 percent, according to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. All the major Prairie rivers are fed by melting snow and ice in the Rockies, but the glaciers and snow pack have been receding due to climate warming.
Weather records in the Prairies show a warming of one to four degrees C in the past 80 to 118 years, and half the weather stations receive substantially less precipitation than a century ago.
April 5, 2006 6:37 AM | Category: Global Warming