Introduction

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The management of water supply and water-based waste disposal is an important concern both in Canada and around the world. One way in which this concern manifests itself is in the rise of ‘grassroots’ and non-governmental organizations, many of which are dedicated to environmental advocacy on water issues (e.g., Ottawa Riverkeeper, 2006). Other organizations are devoted to addressing the concerns of the agricultural community in terms of the intersectoral transfers of water (e.g., Molle and Berkoff, 2006).

In Canada, responsibility for water management issues has historically been spread across disparate government departments (for example, environment, natural resources, health and agriculture) making a coordinated response and integrated management somewhat difficult. This separation derives from, and reflects, the diverse nature of water issues. Water is itself a resource, “but it is also habitat, transport medium, hazard, energy source, waste disposal, wild and farmed food source, coolant, travel impediment and tourist attraction” (Campbell, 2006). In addition to this, water does not respect national, provincial or municipal boundaries. As a result, there is a mismatch between established political borders, on the one hand, and boundaries that are more suitable for the effective governance of issues pertaining to water, on the other hand.

Given this situation, there are increasing calls for new governance structures that are both specifically responsible for all water issues and whose boundaries would be  spatially aligned with the natural geography of water supply and waste disposal (that is, are aligned with natural watersheds). As a result, there are calls for a Pan-Canadian National Freshwater Policy Framework (Campbell, 2006) and for the organization of integrated institutions based on the natural geography of water supply and disposal (Ashton, 2006).

There has been some movement in this direction. For example, in Ontario, The Clean Water Act (2006) has taken a watershed-based approach to source protection planning for all sources of drinking water. Under the auspices of the Ministry of the Environment, conservation authorities across the province will coordinate locally-based source water protection within watershed boundaries.

The realignment to watershed-based jurisdictional boundaries introduces an important rural-urban dimension in that both rural and urban areas are mixed into a single unit to a greater extent than is often the case with established political borders. For example, in 2001, 81% of Canada’s census rural population resided in watersheds where they were outnumbered by the census urban population (calculated from data in Rothwell, 2006). Moreover, this rural-urban dimension is sharpened by the nature of the drainage system itself. A watershed is a region of interconnected waterways which functions as a single system. As such, upstream activities impact downstream quality and supply and it therefore constitutes an important strand of the overall connectivity and mutual interdependence of rural and urban areas of Canada. Water quality and supply, and particularly the imperative of a safe and reliable supply of potable water, mean that water issues form a key aspect of environmental stewardship.

Given that the watershed is emerging as the fundamental spatial unit for water issues, there appears to be a need for demographic and socioeconomic data that is based on the same geography. A previous Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin (Rothwell, 2006) presented basic demographic data by watershed. Map 1 in Rothwell (2006) portrayed each watershed and showed to which watershed type each was classified.

This bulletin extends the analysis to present selected socioeconomic characteristics of the population by type of watershed. As before, the designation of “census rural” and “census urban” has been used to split the population (Box 1). This definition distinguishes between those living in the countryside, specifically outside centres of 1,000 or more, and those individuals living in settlements of 1,000 or more. The focus on the countryside population compared to the census urban population has been undertaken because:

1. countryside dwellers are more likely to source their own water (i.e. not be connected to a municipal water supply) and are more likely to use a septic tank to deal with waste water;
2. countryside dwellers may be more likely to be involved in productive activities that impact water quality.

In this bulletin, the focus is not specifically on the degree of “integration” of a rural area with a larger urban centre (i.e. whether or not particular countryside dwellers reside within the commuting zone of a larger urban centre). The focus is on the nature of the settlement – census rural versus census urban.

Importantly, about one-third of Canada’s census rural population lives in the countryside within the commuting zone of a larger urban centre (du Plessis et al., 2002, Appendix Table E1).

Although the overarching issue is watershed management, water management issues are not directly addressed in this bulletin. Rather, the similarities and differences of rural and urban residents within each type of watershed are profiled. This will reveal the commonalities and differences of rural and urban residents, both within a given type of watershed and across watershed types.