In order to use or divert ground or surface water in Alberta, the province requires you to obtain a licence, under the Alberta Water Act [1]. The following section looks at how Alberta’s water is governed, providing information on water licences, transfers, and allocation.
A water licence is required for any individuals wanting to use or divert water in Alberta. From business to individual use, the regulations apply if one wishes to use ground or surface water. Since August 2006, portions of the South Saskatchewan River Basin have been closed [2] to new water licence applications, except for First Nations, Water Conservation Objectives (WCO) [3], and water storage projects (as per an Approved Water Management Plan). This moratorium on the issuing of new water licences has created Canada’s first market-based system to transfer (trade) water licences.
Alberta’s existing water transfer system currently allows for the re-distribution (trading) of water licences between different water users, under certain conditions. The current system has several public policy protections: a public review of every water transfer, the consideration of hydrological and third-party impacts for each transfer, and the opportunity for the province to hold back 10 per cent of the allocation for environmental in-stream purposes [4].
There are some cases where a licence is not required, such as with statutory household use, traditional agriculture use (for original landowners, see Section 19 of the Water Act), firefighting, wells equipped with hand pumps, and alternate watering systems, which use surface water for grazing livestock and/or certain types of dugouts.
It is important to note that there are also a number of basins in southern Alberta that are closed to new water licences. Within these basins, tools available for the sharing of water are laid out in the Water Act.
Alberta’s Water Act allows the transfer of the right to divert a volume of water from a source of water supply [5], under a certain priority. There is no physical transfer of water from the land. This type of transfer is voluntary, with a willing seller and willing buyer.
The Alberta government monitors this system through a number of control mechanisms. A transfer can only be considered where water is allocated under a licence and where an approved water management plan is in place that allows transfers, or through an order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, which authorizes the ability to transfer. A transfer can be reviewed by the Alberta government, which can withhold a percentage of the transferred water. In response to comments from Albertans on the potential long-term impact on the basic requirements for water, the Water Act specifically states that the rights related to household purposes and registrations for traditional agricultural uses are not subject to the transfer provisions. These rights will always remain attached to the land.
Transfers can be permanent or temporary. With a temporary transfer, the transferred allocation reverts to the original licence after a specified time period. The government’s holdback of up to 10 per cent of the water in an allocation transfer can remain in the natural water body or be held in a Water Conservation Objective licence and will not be available for reallocation for other uses. This holdback applies to permanent and temporary transfers of allocations.
Click here for more information on the Administrative Guidelines for Transferring a Water Allocation.
Note: the following information is based on material obtained from Government of Alberta sources available in 2013. As of May 2023, we are no longer able to find the original or updated material, but believe the information below may be of interest to you and worth retaining. Should you happen to find updated source material, please let us know. Should you be interested in seeing what source material we could find in 2023, see “Facts about water in Alberta” (2010) [6].
This indicator shows the change in total water allocations over time. The allocation totals are broken down into the major sectors representing the types of usage for water in Alberta. Water allocations in Alberta have grown by seven per cent since 2000, surpassing 9.9 billion cubic metres by 2010. The rate of growth since 2000 has decreased slightly compared to the rate over the past 30 years.
Trend: Mixed; generally increasing provincially and across most sectors, but highly dependent upon individual river basin trends.
[1] Government of Alberta, n.d., Water Act. https://open.alberta.ca/publications/w03. Accessed 2023-05-10.
[2] Government of Alberta, 2007, Bow, Oldman and South Saskatchewan River Basin Water Allocation Order. https://kings-printer.alberta.ca/1266.cfm?page=2007_171.cfm&leg_type=Regs&isbncln=9780779725748&display=html. Accessed 2023-05-10.
[3] Government of Alberta, n.d., Water conservation objectives. https://www.alberta.ca/water-conservation-objectives.aspx. Accessed 2023-05-10.
[4] Government of Alberta, n.d., About environmental flows. https://www.alberta.ca/about-environmental-flows.aspx. Accessed 2023-05-10.
[5] Government of Alberta, n.d., Water Allocation Transfer Under a Licence. https://www.alberta.ca/water-allocations-and-transfers.aspx#jumplinks-4. Accessed 2023-05-10.
[6] Government of Alberta, 2010, Facts about water in Alberta. https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/1832cd36-bbeb-4997-ae81-67d3eedfcfe5/resource/18a9d64b-bad8-413a-8c63-77a548ec9d88/download/4888138-2010-facts-about-water-in-alberta-2010-12.pdf. Accessed 2023-05-11.
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