Drought 2024 Imminent
Although many are celebrating the unusually mild winter western Canada is experiencing, the reality of what will lie ahead for the rest of the year is weighing on the minds of farmers and wildland firefighters alike. Last week the Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC), which has a First Nation forest fire protection services contract with the provincial government, urged the province to take preventative measures. The extremely dry winter conditions, following on the tail of the particularly bad 2023 wildfire season, have created a critical risk for wildfires this year. PAGC announced they will begin wildfire mitigation efforts, which can include prescribed burns, forest thinning and pruning, and the mechanical removal of vegetation, as soon as possible.
Cliff Buettner, Director of Forestry for the Prince Albert Grand Council said Saskatchewan's wildfire season typically begins on April 1, but added that due to the dry conditions, there is a possibility that it could get an early start this year and the PAGC would be ready. PAGC Grand Chief Brian Hardlotte said preventative action, increased vigilance, and proactive strategies will be necessary to keep communities safe.
That sentiment holds for the rest of the province as well, especially if the dry conditions persist and are accompanied by early heat like in 2023. Phillip Harder, a hydrologist with Croptimistic Technology Inc., told Global News’ Brody Langager on January 31st, that although things can change, based on the current trajectory, Saskatchewan is likely to see another drought this year. Harder explained that even if we still get a dump of snow, the infiltration potential of the soil is not there right now, and what will allow us to meet the water needs for crops this year will be what we get post-snow melt. “The best-case scenario is we get slow, gentle rains in April and May, but we can’t guarantee those things.”
The term soil infiltration refers to the downward entry of water into the soil. As soils dry, especially during drought events, they can crack and become so dried out that there is reduced infiltration and a greater likelihood of surface runoff and erosion, Bruce Lascelles, the United Kingdom Director of Sustainable Land Management explained in a LinkedIn article from August 2022. Rainfall which follows periods of drought, he continued, will take longer to recharge soil and groundwater reservoirs. The past three years of reduced overall rainfall during the growing season has left the soil in a significant moisture deficit which has left it poorly prepared to absorb water from anything other than a slow prolonged gentle rain event.
More than 80 rural municipalities declared agricultural disaster in 2023 due to drought, and the president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, Ray Orb, expects to see more this spring. Additionally, Orb stated he would like to see the irrigation expansion announced by the Saskatchewan government in the summer of 2020 moving forward. The project’s goal to develop more irrigable acres is part of the long-term growth plan formulated by the government. However, with more irrigation comes the demand for more water. Joel Peru, Water Security Agency’s Director of Irrigation, said that he is not concerned about Lake Diefenbaker’s capacity to supply water to current and future farmers. Referencing a recent WSA analysis of 88 years of flow data on Lake Diefenbaker, Peru said it showed there are 900,000-acre feet of water available, however, the lake itself has only existed since 1967, and the upstream dam on the Oldman River, which provides thirty percent of the water flow for the South Saskatchewan River Basin, was only completed thirty years ago. The problem with relying on data from the past is that it fails to take into consideration current science and the unpredictable nature of the climate changes already being experienced.
On February 1, CBC published an article written by Jason Markusoff on the talks beginning in Alberta as experts and the provincial government agree that as bad as last year’s drought was this year’s drought could be historically worse and require drastic conservation measures. The Oldman Reservoir west of Fort Macleod is at 28 percent capacity, compared to a normal range between 62 and 80 percent around now. The reservoir on the St. Mary River is at 15 percent when it should be between 41 and 70. St. Mary River joins the Oldman River downriver from Lethbridge, which then joins the Bow River to form the South Saskatchewan River. Groundwater by Kananaskis' Marmot Creek is at its lowest levels in more than a half-century, and tracking of the Bow River at Calgary last summer showed it at the lowest ever measured going back to 1911. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/drought-alberta-rebecca-schulz-pincher-creek-1.7101179) Those water bodies mostly get recharged from melting mountain snowpack, and the accumulation in this mild, dry winter is lower than last year's with the snowpack levels across Canada currently being 32 percent of normal as of February 2nd.
John Pomeroy, the Canada Research Chair in water resources and climate change, said recent chinooks in southern Alberta were warm enough to melt snow above the mountain treeline. “Seeing an alpine melt in January is unprecedented in my experience,” he said. “Saskatchewan has Lake Diefenbaker, which is a much larger reservoir than anything Alberta has. And so, Lake Diefenbaker can manage through more than one year [of] drought. Of course, how long depends on the severity of the drought,” Pomeroy said. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/prince-albert-grand-council-sounds-alarm-on-wildfire-season-urges-early-mitigation-measures-1.7102176)
Terri Lang, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, says we have a long way to go to make up for the lack of precipitation we have had throughout the winter season. She says while the changing climate can be a result of the El Nino, it still raises cause for concern. “Certainly, when you are starting to break temperatures like we are, there is something else going on beyond just the El Nino,” Lang said.
Significant long-term moisture deficits remained across western Saskatchewan, in an area of the western portion of the province bordered by Lloydminster in the north, Outlook in the east, and Maple Creek in the south. These areas have gone into winter with below- to well below-normal soil moisture levels, leaving the area vulnerable to water supply issues for the 2024 growing season. In early December, the South Saskatchewan River was currently at its second-lowest level in the past 23 years.
In a November 20, 2023, article written by Shane Clausing and shared on FarmnewsNow, Jeremy Welter, a farmer from Kerrobert, shared his worries. Snowfall during the winter has a major impact on soil moisture levels in the spring, but it is less of an issue of moisture; what the snow really provides is moisture conservation. “While you’ve got that snow on the fields, it’s kind of like a blanket, so it stops that moisture in the dirt from just evaporating through the soil and disappearing, and that’s what we don’t currently have.”
Welter also expressed concern about what another poor crop year in Saskatchewan could mean for people across Canada and around the world. “Most of what we produce in Saskatchewan and Western Canada does not stay in Canada. A vast majority of our production goes to other parts of the world, and that is something that weighs on all of us,” he explained. “We produce food for a very hungry world, and when we are unable to do that, that means somebody, somewhere is potentially going hungry. There is a lot that weighs on the minds of farmers in years and weather cycles like this.”
“We’ve gone through this before, but I think this is kind of the longest and most sustained drought period we’ve had,” Don Connick, a farmer in Gull Lake said. “We’ve got four or five years of drought under our belt now where we’ve had below normal rainfall and higher temperatures.” (https://farmnewsnow.com/2023/11/30/incredibly-concerning-lack-of-snow-leaves-some-sask-farmers-worried/)
Contrasting the concern voiced by farmers, hydrologists, and meteorologists, Ian Boxall, the president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) says he is confident that more snow will be seen yet this winter. Moreover, that snow will be “enough to fill up dugouts for farmers…I’m optimistic that we’ll get the moisture that we require before spring,” Boxall said. However, there is no question that the soil will still benefit from further snow, which is certain to occur yet this winter, because the plus-degree temperatures of late have left the stubble in fields empty so it can trap more snow on the ground. Pomeroy would caution that Saskatchewan’s drought should be a wake-up call for those in agriculture. The strong El Niño system this year, combined with the chronic heating effects of climate change should have everyone looking at ways to conserve water. Fresh water is very much a finite resource and as Stacey Smythe, an assistant deputy minister with Alberta Environment, stated, “More than agriculture will be impacted if this extreme level of dryness continues.”
Carol Baldwin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Wakaw Recorder
