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5. Why Study Water? Turning a Potential Crisis into Opportunity

Why Study Water? Turning a Potential Crisis into Opportunity

Podcast

December 1, 2010
Museum of Natural History, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Speaker: Dr. Graham Gagnon, Canadian Research Chair in Water Quality and Treatment; NSERC/NRWC Industrial Research Chair; Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Dalhousie University

Graham Gagnon, Ph.D., first takes his listeners back to the mid 1800s in England when a scientist made the link between water and the spread of disease. Water treatment became one of the critical public health accomplishments of the 19th century. Nowadays in the western world, water quality problems are more complicated. New chemicals and pharmaceuticals are flushed into the waste water system every day. Other challenges are more systemic. They include the rules governing water, the pricing of water and the intricate link between water and energy.

This lecture was part of Voices: A Canadian Perspective on Water, RBC National Lecture Series.