Publications

The National Land and Water Information Service strives to present up-to-date and informative publications related to topics of interest to its clients and the Canadian public in general. Additional publications will be added on a continuous basis. We do hope that you will return regularly to see what's new.

• The Health of our Water
• The Health of our Air
• The Health of our Soils 

Requests for a copy of the publications in full should be directed through the Contact NLWIS section of the National Land and Water Information Service Web site

The Health of our Water

Sustainable agriculture cannot be achieved without the wise stewardship of our water resources. This document summarizes what is currently known about the state of water resources in the agricultural areas of Canada. It does so by

• describing water resources in rural areas and the way in which they are used
• considering the concepts that underlie the assessment of water quality, and then examining the quality of surface water and groundwater in relation to agricultural activities
• discussing the major water-related ecological issues that have resulted from the co-existence of agriculture and natural ecosystems in the rural environment
• looking at ways in which the availability and quality of water can be optimized for the various competing users
• explaining ways in which excess water can be managed to improve drainage and minimize flooding
• discussing the limitations that water availability and quality place on the expansion of agricultural and other development in rural areas.

The Health of our Air

The most pronounced change in the atmosphere, and the one with greatest potential consequence, is the build-up of greenhouse gases. Hence, this report addresses in detail the amounts of greenhouse gas emission and possible ways of reducing them. We limit our discussions mainly to agricultural production itself and, except for ethanol, do not consider the fate of agricultural products once they leave the farm. Many of the findings presented were obtained from a national research program initiated by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in 1992.

Besides focusing on greenhouse gases, we also consider several other current atmospheric issues, though in less detail: ground-level O3, ammonia, ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun, aerosols, nitrogen oxides, pesticides, and farm-related odors. Wherever possible, our discussion is based on findings from Canadian studies but, where Canadian results are only just emerging, we have drawn on results from elsewhere.

Changes to the global environment may have pronounced effects on Canadian agriculture in the future: changing concentrations of CO2 may affect plant growth; increasing temperature may allow greater diversity of crops but favor crop pests; changing patterns of precipitation may favor some areas but induce drought in others. Such changes remain hard to predict. Because of this uncertainty and the constraints of space in this report, how agriculture will adapt to future changes is only referred to indirectly; we await results of ongoing research to clarify this issue further.

The Health of our Soil

Soil health is indisputably a major factor in our ability to sustain agricultural activities in Canada and to safeguard the environment. This report defines soil health in terms of agriculture and presents key results of research undertaken in the past decade to increase our understanding of the factors affecting soil health, to monitor indicators of soil health, and to identify and refine farming practices that help to maintain and improve soil health. It also gives a picture, although an incomplete one, of the health of Canada's agricultural soils today.

Apart from small areas of agricultural expansion, Canada has reached the limit of land suitable for crop production. Thus, agricultural productivity will be maintained mainly through wise use of present resources preserving the area and the quality of land currently in agricultural use.