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Drinking water

Last updated on February 10, 2026

Access to clean, safe and reliable drinking water is essential for the health of all people in British Columbia. This page provides information about drinking water in B.C.

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Keeping drinking water safe

Safe drinking water means that water is suitable for people to drink.

To help keep water safe for homes and businesses, B.C. follows a system of protections from source to tap known as the multi-barrier approach. The three core elements of this approach include source water protection, drinking water treatment and drinking water distribution system integrity. These core elements must be managed as a whole because no single element can guarantee clean, safe and reliable drinking water.

This Health Canada Safe Drinking Water Diagram (JPG, 35KB) illustrates the components of the multi-barrier approach.

Additional processes and tools that make up the multi-barrier approach include:

  • Monitoring and management of water supplies from source to tap
  • Legislative and policy frameworks
  • Public involvement and awareness
  • Guidelines, standards and objectives
  • Research, science and technology 

Each barrier helps to protect water from various hazards in a different way so that if one of the barriers has a problem or fails, the next steps will help to keep drinking water clean and safe to drink over the long term.

Key topics for drinking water

How drinking water is protected

Protecting drinking water from source to tap involves a lot of different people and agencies. It includes water users, system owners and operators, government ministries, health authorities and training organizations:

Source water

Lakes, rivers, creeks, springs and aquifers are all sources of drinking water.

Find information on where your drinking water comes from, including data and a map of drinking water systems and source water in B.C. 

Source water protection

Protecting source water helps provide safe, clean drinking water. 

Drinking water quality

Information on providing safe drinking water includes:

Resources for water system operators include:

Legislation

  • The Drinking Water Protection Act is the main drinking water legislation in B.C. It regulates water suppliers to ensure clean, safe drinking water
  • More details about drinking water legislation is available on how drinking water is protected in B.C.
  • The Water Sustainability Act regulates water use, and all water suppliers are required to hold a water licence to operate. Further, the Groundwater Protection Regulation sets out requirements for wells to minimize the chance of contamination entering drinking water wells
  • More details about how the water is managed and water licensing are available on the water licensing and rights page

How drinking water gets delivered

Drinking water is supplied by a variety of water suppliers and systems in B.C., including:

Examples of independent water suppliers include a business like a rural campground, or a strata corporation, that owns and operates its own water system:

The Drinking Water Protection Act does not regulate private groundwater wells. Private groundwater well owners are responsible for ensuring their drinking water is safe:

First Nations water systems

Drinking water systems that are owned and operated by First Nations are a shared responsibility between First Nations, First Nations Health Authority (FNHA), and the government of Canada. The FNHA offers education, training and other services related to drinking water safety.

Many First Nations governments in B.C. operate water supply systems and manage the day-to-day water and wastewater systems on-reserve while others may receive water through an agreement from an off-reserve supplier.

The federal government, through Indigenous Services Canada, is responsible for providing and funding drinking water infrastructure on First Nations’ reserve lands. The B.C provincial government allocates water for drinking water use through water licenses and shares stewardship responsibilities with First Nations for source water protection.

Water system infrastructure maintenance and operation

The sustainability and reliability of safe drinking water is inherently linked to water system infrastructure. Like all infrastructure, owners and operators need to plan for and undertake regular maintenance and upgrades to meet community and user needs.

Numerous factors contribute to the cost to maintain a water system, such as:

  • The conditions and availability of source water
  • Age and sophistication of the water system infrastructure
  • Location and proximity to urban centers
  • Training of operators
  • Contingency planning
  • Demand from population size

Water systems in B.C. operate on a cost-recovery, self-sufficiency basis. Water operators set water rates appropriately to operate, maintain, upgrade and replace infrastructure. Water suppliers’ needs to collect the required funding capital for their water systems will vary. Mechanisms include customer fees, taxes, government programs and grants, loans, and others. The governance structure of a system will largely determine what financial tools are available to use.

B.C. Healthlink Files contain information on a variety of topics related to drinking water a public health. For example:

The Provincial Health Officer is required to report on activities under the Drinking Water Protection Act and the associated Drinking Water Reports are publicly available.

Each regional health authority also reports on drinking water. Find your health authority web page and navigate to drinking water information.