Increased water restrictions are likely as drought levels continue to increase on Vancouver Island will little relief in site. (Dreamstime)

By Alex Rawnsley

adverse impacts

Island bumped up to drought level four ahead of typically driest months

Jul 2, 2023 | 6:51 AM

NANAIMO — Rapid melt, bone dry weather and unseasonably hot temperatures have combined to send the Island region into essentially uncharted territory.

The B.C ministry of forests’ water management branch boosted drought levels on both eastern and western Vancouver Island to a four on Thursday, June 29. It’s the second highest possible level of drought on their five-step scale.

Dave Campbell from the B.C. River Forecast Centre said he doesn’t recall the drought level being this high, this early in his last 12 or 13 years in the job.

“Regardless of when we hit levels for drought on the Island, it’s obviously a very significant level and when we get into these level four conditions we’d expect to see adverse impacts showing up across the landscape.”

For comparison, the region was at drought level four on July 9, 2021, amid a record-shattering heat dome event.

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In mid-August 2021, the region went to drought level five.

Vancouver Island joins areas of northern B.C. and the Fraser basin to be at the province’s second highest drought level. (Ministry of Forests)

Campbell was unprepared to speculate when or if 2023 would follow suit, but said the region and province overall was trending in the wrong direction.

“We’ve got a seasonal forecast this year of a hotter summer, precipitation forecasts are a little hard to get a handle on, on the long range so we don’t put too much weight on those but we can look to the climatology for places like Vancouver Island where July and August are the driest months of the year.”

He added barring an unexpected, extended deluge, “it’s going to be difficult to see a lot of rebounds in the rivers.”

Campbell pointed to a quicker than normal melt of the winter snowpack as a contributing factor, aside from the spring-summer weather, to drought conditions.

He said rivers on the mid-Island from Nanaimo to Courtenay are fairing a little better than most, but it’s far from a good situation.

“We’re seeing a lot of the rivers at that stage now where we’d expect to see impacts to aquatic habitat and that kind of thing.”

Many areas of Vancouver Island are between 100 and 300 millimetres short on rainfall over the last 12 months, representing a considerable deficit to be made up.

Messaging around conservation continues to be driven home in a bid to preserve what water is around.

Data from the Regional District of Nanaimo showed roughly one third of monitored aquifers were performing below average, mainly around the Qualicum/Deep Bay area.

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