Watershed security is key to creating resilience to drought and fire – and wetlands on the landscape are essential

As British Columbians, we all rely on the water that flows from the mountains during spring snowmelt, and from the rains that fall through the cooler months. It is the backbone of life: essential to our ecosystems, our economy, to food production and to providing us with abundant, clean water that sustains our communities. Without a way to capture and store this water during the spring runoff, much of this water would flow quickly from the landscape, travelling through our major river systems and ending up in the ocean by early summer.

Fortunately, wetlands and other small water features act like sponges on the landscape; holding water back and slowly dispersing it out through an interconnected system that allows for widespread surface water storage and groundwater recharge.

With hotter and drier summers almost certain to decrease warm season water flows in the future, features like wetlands that keep water on the land later in the season are becoming even more critical.

Droughts and wildfires have ravaged many places across Canada and here in B.C. this year. Governments across the country are paying attention to the devastating impacts these events have on communities and ecosystems, and to the soaring costs associated with combating and mitigating them.

When healthy wetlands are plentiful and effectively connected and stewarded, they store water for a myriad of values, including moderating the effect of drought, making the landscape more resilient to wildfire, and aiding in wildland fire suppression.

In wildland firefighting situations, even small water features can make a big difference. Waterbodies can slow the spread of fire across landscapes, giving firefighters more time and strategic opportunities to act on the blaze. They also provide critical sources of water to draw upon for wildfire firefighting. As a rancher, I saw this firsthand during the 2021 fire season, when wildfires threatened our ranch near Kamloops. We saw crews on the ground with pumps and hoses pumping out of even the smallest wetlands. Helicopters used our water storage lakes for bucketing, and we had several water trucks coming into our ranch yard daily to hook up to our irrigation system—a system that relies on water stored in the small irrigation lakes on our land—to disperse out for firefighting.

While there were considerable consequences to the wildland fire for our ranch, the combination of wildland and community firefighters, wetlands and lakes and natural fuel breaks spared us worse outcomes. For this, I am grateful.

Conserving, restoring, and stewarding wetlands and other aquatic areas must be part of our pathway to climate adaptation as fire seasons become increasingly severe. It is also clear that the rate of wetland loss— with over 80 per cent of historic wetlands having been lost in many parts of B.C. —is cause for alarm and that immediate conservation actions and investments in our watersheds are essential.

The Province of B.C. appears to be prioritizing this type of landscape-level water stewardship through the development of the Watershed Security Strategy, co-developed with the B.C.-First Nations Water Table. In March, the Province announced a $100 million investment in a Watershed Security Fund to better steward watersheds. This is an excellent start, however, to put it into perspective, the cost of wildfire

fighting in B.C. was $700 million in 2021, with $585 million reported to have been spent in 2023 as of August 28th. Our watersheds need more investments and those investments need to happen now.

The watershed security strategy also includes some encouraging intentions to support local watershed governance. Watershed stewardship affects all of us: governance strategies that help engage a wide diversity of voices are bound to be more effective in the long term. Many of the best solutions to improve water security will be specific to unique watersheds and are therefore likely to come from people who live in those watersheds.

Wetlands, lakes, rivers, and streams—our watersheds—are critical natural infrastructure when it comes to climate adaptation. We hope to see partnership between the provincial and federal governments to increase investment in the BC Watershed Security Fund up to $1 billion to achieve meaningful protection and increases in these critical resources. We also encourage the Province to follow though on another watershed security strategy commitment to develop a policy to explicitly protect our critical wetland habitats.

Andrea Barnett is Ducks Unlimited Canada’s public policy specialist in B.C. and her family owns and operates a ranch in Secwepemc Territory near Savona, B.C.