Please direct all questions and comments to Dr. Christian De Kimpe 9. A sufficient supply of good quality water is needed for agricultural activities such as irrigation and livestock watering, as well as for domestic, municipal, industrial, recreational, and instream uses. Droughts are sure to occur but difficult to predict. They occur most often in dry regions, such as the Prairies, although other parts of Canada may have shorter, less serious periods of drought.
Drought threatens both crop and livestock production.
With the potential threat of global warming and increasing trends in population, urbanization, and consumptive use, the impacts of drought can only become more serious. The development of storage reservoirs and dugouts is essential to maintaining adequate year-round supplies, particularly in the drier parts of the country. Groundwater is an important source of water in many parts of the country. Sustainable use of groundwater resources depends on withdrawing water at rates that do not exceed recharge rates. Deep aquifers recharged only by water filtering through overlying materials are particularly at risk of overwithdrawals.