Is Calgary's water use sustainable as the city grows?
Calgary’s water, measured against its own ceilings.
Annual withdrawals have stayed in a narrow band even as the city nearly doubled. We pull the demand curve, the Plan budget, and the river limits that bound it all — then answer the public claims being made about the Water Efficiency Plan, each set next to the figure it rests on.
The figures
7 figures · each cited to a primary sourceAnnual river withdrawals
Total drawn from the Bow & Elbow each year, against the provincial licence and the Plan operational cap. A flat band as the city nearly doubled.
How Calgary uses water
Sector shares and the indoor / outdoor split. Residential is the largest single share — and a fifth of supply is non-revenue water before anyone drinks it.
Daily demand & ceilings
The daily curve read against the licence, plant capacity, the peak-day target and the Plan's annual cap. Plant capacity is the binding ceiling.
Plan budget, 2027–2030
The Plan envelope by line. The largest single line is the Accelerated Water Loss Program — pipe replacement and leak detection — not advanced metering.
Bow River discharge, 1912–2025
A century of annual flow on the river the city draws from — the supply side of the ledger the licence ceiling is measured against in low-flow years.
Restriction-stage timeline
When outdoor water restrictions were called and at what stage — including the response to the 2024 Bearspaw feeder-main rupture. Events as published.
Outdoor restriction stage matrix
What each stage permits — Stage 1 through Stage 4, by activity. The rule set behind the timeline, laid out so you can see what changes at each level.
Sources & method
primary sources · open recordCity of Calgary open data
River withdrawals, daily demand, sector shares, regulatory limits and the Plan budget — each pulled from the City's published datasets and committee documents.
The JSON travels with the chart
Every figure carries the artefact filename it was rendered from. The committed JSON is the public record — you can check the number yourself.
Answered verbatim
Public claims are quoted as published and linked to source, then answered against the primary figure — not paraphrased, not strawmanned.