The risk of drought caused by climate change brings to mind images of parched landscapes and withered crops, but in relatively humid Nova Scotia the threat sometimes lies beneath the surface.
Barret Kurylyk, an engineering professor at Dalhousie University, said the "warmer and drier climate" in Nova Scotia means there is now more evaporation and therefore less water making its way down to the water table.
Nova Scotia began seeing more extreme summer drought in 2016 in the southwestern parts of the province, and conditions were the driest in 2023 when wildfires scorched about 250 square kilometres of land in the province and destroyed at least 165 homes.
Kurylyk, Canada Research Chair in coastal water resources, is studying the effects of climate change on groundwater in Nova Scotia. He acknowledged that drought does not immediately come to mind as a problem in a "very, very wet" place like Nova Scotia. "You can still be experiencing a drought if it's just not as wet as normal," said Kurylyk. "That's where we are in Nova Scotia."
The change is evident in maps from the Canadian Drought Monitor, which draws on federal, provincial, and regional data The monitor shows half of the province was in an extreme drought in 2023.
Kathy Harris and her husband, who have lived in their southwestern Nova Scotia home for 11 years, are seeing the effects firsthand. Drawing water from their shallow well has been a problem since they moved in, but the shortages are getting worse.
Their well goes dry during the summer. And even when there is water, she said it is contaminated and cannot be used for drinking or cooking. "It gets expensive to buy water," she said in an interview from her home in Shelburne, N.S. "People who can always turn on that tap and water comes out, you don't know how lucky you are."
She and her husband "improvise" to overcome the water shortage, she said. They bought several 567-litre containers that they fill with water from the local firehall. The water is transferred to a large reservoir, from which it can be pumped up to the house.
"It takes my husband all day to be able to get things set up – bring the water, transfer it from one container to the other, then go back and get another," she said. "Oh, yes, it's a lot of work."
In 2020, Harris said their well was dry for nearly five months. "It was horrible," she said. "My friend stopped answering the phone because they knew I would ask 'Can I come have a shower?' or 'Can I do a load of laundry?'"
Most of the drinking water shortage in Nova Scotia is in areas that have what Kurylyk says are shallow wells, which are usually less than 15 metres deep and mostly dug using excavators, backhoes or power shovels. Many older ones were dug by hand. Because they're so shallow, he said they're vulnerable when the water table drops.
Rural families with fixed incomes often find it hard to spend to drill a bedrock well when they've been relying on the shallow dug well for decades or maybe generations, he added.
"And the water table's lowering more than it used to. There's communities in southern Nova Scotia that have had water issues for generations, but not at the scale we're seeing."
Rural Water Watch works with marginalized areas in Nova Scotia that face water shortages and water quality issues. Fred Bonner, the group's executive director, said the provincial Environment Department estimated in 2016 that about 1,000 private dug wells have been affected by drought. In some municipalities, a quarter of homes have been left without water when drought hits. About 40 per cent of the population in Nova Scotia uses groundwater and dug wells, he added.
"The drought situation comes and goes," he said. "We don't talk in terms of just drought. When we go into a community and we do a presentation, we talk about climate change, and drought is one factor in climate change."
People in rural areas have started adapting to the fluctuations in water levels by using barrels to store rainwater that they then use to water lawns or wash their cars, he said. Some have altered their laundry and dishwashing routines to conserve water, he added.
In Shelburne, Harris is even invoking a higher power. "We are praying – praying to the rain god that the water table is going to be high enough this year that we're going to make it through the whole summer," she said. "People who don't think climate change and all that is real, they are so sadly mistaken."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 22, 2025.
Hina Alam, The Canadian Press
