Clean Water | Vancouverites enjoy
the best drinking water of any major city
2020 Target
Always meet the strongest of BC, Canadian and World Health Organization drinking water standards; Reduce per capita residential water consumption by 20 per cent by 2020 and 50 per cent by 2050.
Today
Vancouver is extremely fortunate: we get our water from watersheds in the North Shore mountains—almost 600 square kilometres of mountainous terrain that is closed to public access, keeping these deep rain and snow-fed reservoirs clean. Our water is tested more than 25,000 times each year.
Challenges
Water is a multi-jurisdictional issue, and we must work in concert with Metro Vancouver, which supplies drinking water to all Lower Mainland municipalities. Climate change may have unknown effects on rainfall and snowfall in our watersheds, and our growing population will increase demand.
Your Ideas
How can Vancouver have the best drinking water and ensure that we extend the capacity of our current sources to at least 2100, despite growing population? We can provide code changes to support high efficiency appliances and fixtures, incentives to modernize old water wasting technologies and introduce penalties that reinforce appropriate use of water with the goal of extending the life of our alpine lakes for as long as possible before population growth forces expansion. How would you secure Vancouver's water quality?
More information on Clean Water
Your images
Green the City is a visual database of images and ideas submitted by you as we journey towards our goal of becoming the World's Greenest City by 2020. See the clean water images you submitted