U of S prof to sit on American water panel

A University of Saskatchewan professor has been named the lone Canadian on an expert panel tasked with advising the United States government on how best to manage water-related issues such as droughts, flood and compromised water quality.

“It’s nice to have Canada represented and it’s really, I think, recognition of the fact that the university’s seen as a global leader in water now,” Howard Wheater said.

The 11 panel members — Wheater and 10 Americans — met for the first time last week.

They aim to issue a report to the National Academy of the United States by November 2018.

Wheater said the report will be of interest to the Canadian government as well given all the nations’ shared water bodies.

Wheater describes water as “one of the big issues of the 21st century” and said the human and economic costs of not better understanding it are huge. This was demonstrated this summer when Hurricane Harvey caused massive flooding in Texas, resulting in an estimated $180 billion in damages and at least 80 deaths.

“The only thing that’s really certain about the future is that it’s going to be relatively uncertain,” Wheater said.

“We’ve grown up in an era where we’ve kind of looked to the past 50, 100 years and used that to design our water infrastructure and the world’s changing. So you have to have new and better ways of projecting what the future might look like and then managing our vulnerabilities and that includes water for people, the quality of our water and also protecting our ecosystems.”

The panel’s job will include understanding what areas are most at risk of severe water events such as floods and droughts.

This could help governments develop plans around where people and industry can put down roots.

But Wheater is realistic. He says he knows people have chosen to live in “hazardous” places and that this is may not change anytime soon, regardless of whether people are aware of the risk they’re putting themselves in.

“It’s a difficult job for government sometimes because there are many pressures for development and to say to people ‘Well, really you need to hold back and that’s not a safe place,’ that’s a difficult political decision,” he said.

“The best that we can do is to use the latest science to give people good advice as to what’s safe and what’s not safe and hope that the political will is there to manage that risk.”

Wheater is the co-leader of the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Water Futures research initiative and the director of the institution’s Global Institute for Water Security.

He is stepping down from both as of Sept. 30 and March 2018 respectively as he turns his focus to his international work.