Spotlight on water for World Water Day 2025

The year of the glacier

Each year, the United Nation’s (UN) observes World Water Day by highlighting an issue of importance to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, of safe water and sanitation for all by 2030 (SDG 6). This SDG is one of 17 goals that form the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Canada’s progress towards all 17 SDGs, including SDG 6 can be viewed at Canada’s SDG Data Hub.

The theme of this year’s World Water Day, on March 22, 2025, is "Glacier Preservation," aligned with the 2025 International Year of Glaciers. Meltwater from glaciers is an essential resource for supplying drinking water reservoirs, agriculture, industry, hydroelectric energy production, and healthy ecosystems. However, climate warming is causing rapid melting of glaciers, changing watershed hydrology and impacting human populations and ecosystems. Glaciers have been highlighted as important sentinels of climate change.

Tackling the climate crisis to reduce planetary warming is essential, as is developing tools and strategies to adapt to glacial retreat and the impact of changing meltwater flows on flood risks, drought, landslides, and sea level rise. More resources and stories related to World Water Day 2025 can be accessed on the UN World Water Day website.

Recent updates to Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality and new consultation from Health Canada:

In keeping on the theme of water, there have been some recent updates to the Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines and a new consultation currently underway by Health Canada. These include:

Updates:

• Iron: The Guideline Technical Document for iron has been updated, establishing an aesthetic objective (AO) of ≤ 0.1 mg/L (100 µg/L) for total iron in drinking water.

• Lead: New guidance has been published on Sampling and Mitigation Measures for Controlling Lead Corrosion.

New consultation: 

• Arsenic: An update to the Guideline for Arsenic is currently under consultation until May 6, 2025. The update proposes a lowering of the MAC from 10 µg/L to 5 µg/L.

For more information on Canadian Drinking Water guidelines, consultation documents, and drinking water contaminants (Water Talk Fact Sheets), check out Health Canada’s Water Quality – Reports and Publications and relevant provincial and territorial agencies responsible for drinking water.

For more water-related resources from the NCCEH see our “Water” category, for the full suite of resources ranging from blogs, to webinar recordings, evidence reviews, and subject guides