Half Empty or Half Full? The Outlook for the Canadian Water Sector

Tuesday, October 31, 2017
12:00 pm to 1:30 pm
Room 1009, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building
Dalhousie University, 6100 University Avenue, Halifax, NS

Is our drinking water safe from contamination? How vulnerable are our water filtration plants to natural disasters, cyber-attacks or break-ins? How is water security different for those in First Nations communities? This discussion focuses on new research about the resilience of the Canadian water sector. Panelists discuss the state of this valuable resource from local and global perspectives.

About the speakers

Lalita Bharadwaj


Lalita Bharadwaj is committed to finding solutions for and understanding issues associated with inequitable access, supply and provision of safe, sustainable drinking water supplies for First Nations, rural and remote Saskatchewan communities. Through her community-based participatory research activities, she has provided learning opportunities for university and local students, facilitated interdisciplinary research collaborations and helped build research capacity at the local and university level.

Dr. Bharadwaj is a toxicologist at the University of Saskatchewan with expertise in human and environmental health risk assessment, including on brownfield sites impacted by creosote, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals.

Calvin Burns


Calvin Burns is an industrial-organizational psychologist at the University of Strathclyde, UK. Dr. Burns’ research centres on how risk perception and trust attitudes influence risk decision-making and risk-taking behaviours, mainly in high hazard / safety critical organizations. He has also co-authored a new study on Canadian water infrastructure to be released in late October 2017 and will be presented at the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association in November 2017.
 

Marq de Villiers

 

Marq de Villiers is a veteran journalist and the author of 15-and-counting books, the most recent being Back to the Well: Rethinking the Future of Water, published in the fall of 2015. He is working on a history of hell.

Francesco Sindico


Francesco Sindico is Co-Director of the Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance and Programme Leader of the Strathclyde LLM in Climate Change Law and Policy. Dr. Sindico’s work focuses on international water law and policy with a special emphasis on transboundary aquifer law and policy, an area in which he has been collaborating with leading international organizations in Southern Africa, Central America and South America.


About the series

Policy Matters is a weekly panel discussion on major policy issues presented by the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance and in collaboration with the Dalhousie School of Public Administration. Each discussion features thought leaders from civil society and focuses on one of the Institute's four research themes – Civic Engagement, Atlantic Canada and the World, Health Systems and Governance and Smart Infrastructure. Held each Tuesday from September 12 to November 14, the discussions take place in room 1009 of the Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building at Dalhousie, from 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm. The events are designed to encourage public engagement with local, national and international policy issues and are open to the public.

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