About | Irrigation in Saskatchewan | Irrigation in Alberta | Research Outputs
Historicizing Adaptation Blog Series
“Water and the Modern Prairies” is a historical research project aimed at large-scale, publicly-funded irrigation projects in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The project establishes and evaluates the outcomes of mid-20th century prairie irrigation, with particular attention to the varied and uneven consequences of these efforts.
The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2022) makes clear that global drought is becoming more common and more intense, establishing irrigation as a fundamental technique of adaptation in agricultural regions. On the rural Canadian prairies, where agriculture shapes communities and drives economies, some commentators feel that successful climate change adaptation depends on further development of historical irrigation systems.
Historical research on irrigation has typically focused on the pre-1945 period. Comparatively little study has focused on the substantial publicly-funded irrigation undertaken on the mid-20th century prairies, decades in which agricultural industrialization was felt in full force and the inequities of the colonization period became further entrenched. “Water and the Modern Prairies” advances the essential work of accounting for the transformative effects of agricultural colonization after 1945.
“Water and the Modern Prairies” is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Shannon Stunden Bower leads the “Water and the Modern Prairies” project. She is employed at the University of Alberta as an environmental historian of the Canadian Prairies/Northern Great Plains. Her work focuses on questions of water management, agricultural change, and state power. Contact her at stundenbower@ualberta.ca.
