2020

From Our Executive Director

It is a privilege to be able to report the achievements of Living Lakes Canada for the past year. These achievements belong to you, our donors, funders, and partners, as well as our team of advisors, directors, staff, and contractors.

We are in an unprecedented era where climate change is impacting and will continue to impact the quality and quantity of water in British Columbia, Canada, and around the world. At times, working to protect life-supporting freshwater ecosystems and build climate resilience into our communities can feel overwhelming. For the most part, we have learned to regard this work as a paradigm-shifting opportunity for collective problem-solving. This year, we have been able to build a team of energetic and intrinsically motivated individuals who continue to implement various concurrent stewardship projects ranging from the training of water monitoring groups to restoration, policy, and data management for our streams, lakes, wetlands, and groundwater wells.

There are many highlights from the year that your support has enabled:

• We soft launched the Columbia Basin Water Data Hub so we could have feedback in an iterative process to better serve the data collecting groups in the Canadian Columbia Basin.

• We hosted a senior hydrologists workshop where we reached consensus that a water balance approach is needed to logically and sequentially begin efforts towards filling water data gaps required for subsequent water budgeting in the ten hydrological subregions of the Basin.

• We developed a ‘Terms of Reference’ (ToR) for a Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Board and a ToR for a scientific advisory for a Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Board.

• With our partners, we completed year two of the ‘Sequencing the Rivers for Environmental Assessment and Monitoring’ program (STREAM) despite COVID field restrictions and launched collaborative work on the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies.

• Similarly, our four-year Foreshore Integrated Management Planning program (FIMP) successfully concluded its second year of lake surveys after updating the new Federal protocol in 2019.

• Additional observation wells were added to our Columbia Basin Groundwater monitoring program.

• We adopted and rebranded the North Kootenay Lake Water Monitoring Project to become the Kootenay Watershed Science under our Living Lakes Canada umbrella. The program continues to monitor seven stream sites, two high elevation snow courses, and three climate sites.

• We developed our plan for a National Lake Blitz.

• We participated in the Supercluster Innovation Fund for the Fresh Water Data Commons project.

• We have begun to understand how we can apply some elements of Truth and Reconciliation into our water stewardship work and had two MOUs signed by Ktunaxa Bands.

• We continue to be grateful for the opportunity of board and advisor support, without which this progressive work would not have been possible.

Kat Hartwig, Executive Director

Columbia Basin Water Hub

Living Lakes Canada’s “Water Hub” is the central repository for water-related data in the Columbia Basin. It provides a secure platform for preserving, maintaining, and providing accessible, complete, and consistent water data of the Columbia Basin and facilitates increasing community resilience and adaptability to climatic change.

Advancing from a concept to a proven application, this has been an exciting year for the Water Hub. Significant consultation with water data users across the basin — local stewardship groups, government, Indigenous communities, and industry — preceded database development. Considerable testing, trialing, and recommendations gathered from our partners over the course of the year have now delivered a database that maintains data quality, adheres to different water standards, and is able to accept a wide variety of file formats. Together with a complementary suite of uploading tools and a data management plan, the Water Hub is now receiving and providing data to users across the Basin.

“The Hub has provided an excellent forum to host data meant for the public. It will generate greater use of the data gathered from our monitoring programs.”

Bill Coedy, Rossland Streamkeepers

STREAM/CABIN

A partnership between Living Lakes Canada, WWF-Canada, University of Guelph and ECCC, STREAM (Sequencing the Rivers Sequencing the Rivers for Environmental Assessment and Monitoring) follows CABIN protocols to collect benthics then uses a technology called “DNA metabarcoding” to detect what species’ DNA is present in a water sample. Some species of bugs are more sensitive to pollution than others. An aquatic ecosystem’s health at a site can be assessed by identifying which species are present. STREAM uses environmental DNA to identify these species accurately, quickly and at low cost.

This year, through the generous support of our funders, we delivered three STREAM/CABIN workshops in Western Canada: Nelson (BC), Binche Keyoh (BC), Coleman (AB), training 19 community-based water monitors from seven different organizations. We also supported the collection of 229 water samples for assessment from across Canada.

“The support we received from Living Lakes Canada has been outstanding. It’s exciting to be part of a project making the collection and analysis of benthic invertebrate data simpler, more accessible, and less expensive for local watershed stewardship groups across Canada.”

Sofie Forsstrom, Oldman Watershed Council

 

Columbia Wetlands

Living Lakes Canada was founded in the Columbia Valley, home to one of North America’s longest, intact wetlands systems: the Columbia Wetlands. This 26,000-hectare wetland system is a RAMSAR-designated wetland of international importance recognized for its biodiversity and as important resting and breeding habitat for migratory birds. It contains the only undammed section of the entire 2,000 kilometre-long transboundary Columbia River.

In a changing climate, understanding the role groundwater plays in keeping wetlands climate resilient can inform water management decisions in a way that will not only protect and preserve nature, but the important ecological services wetlands provide to society as well (holding floodwaters, removing pollution, sequestering carbon, etc).

In 2020, Living Lakes Canada assisted in installing a series of hydrometric stations and collecting water samples in the Columbia Wetlands near Invermere, B.C. This work was conducted for the Columbia Wetlands Stewardship Partners Hydrology Project, which is working to identify wetlands vulnerable to climate change and identify potential wetlands for mitigation activities.

“There is an important relationship between groundwater and wetlands. Isotopic samples have indicated the amount of groundwater recharging the wetlands in non-flow periods may be up to 80%. We need to balance the integrity of the wetlands with impactful land uses such as logging, mining, municipal and recreation uses and, in particular, the commercial extraction of water from important aquifers.”

Kat Hartwig, Living Lakes Canada Executive Director

Kootenay Watershed Science

Kootenay Watershed Science, or KWS (formerly known as the North Kootenay Lake Water Monitoring Project), is building knowledge of watersheds in the north Kootenay Lake region through an extensive, high-quality monitoring network consisting of three climate, and seven streamflow monitoring sites. This knowledge enables decision makers, residents, and researchers to make decisions that will help ensure safety and sustainability for our communities under threat of a changing climate. From irrigation, to fish and wetland health, to drinking water, fire suppression activities and flood management, understanding our watersheds is essential to health, safety and quality of life.

In 2019-2020, all KWS data was made freely available online via partnerships with Aquatic Informatics and the Columbia Basin Water Hub, a new educational partnership with Selkirk College was established, and most significantly, we successfully collected another year of data at all of our sites, adding greatly to our understanding of Columbia Basin watersheds.

“Bringing KWS within Living Lakes Canada promotes resilience, and enables this program to continue to build an understanding of the watersheds in our region.”

Paul Saso, KWS Hydrologist

CBWM National Roundtable

In 2018, Living Lakes Canada, The Gordon Foundation, and WWF-Canada convened a collaborative dialogue to identify actionable steps the federal government can take to show leadership and support in advancing community-based monitoring of freshwater ecosystems in Canada. All three organizations engage with Community-Based Water Monitoring (CBWM) in different ways and are committed to advancing collaborative and evidence-based water stewardship across Canada.

More than 50 leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous CBWM practitioners, water scientists, policy and data experts developed tangible recommendations that were released as a final report in 2019.

In 2020, Living Lakes Canada continued working with water leaders from across the country to encourage federal action on the CBWM recommendations. The group began by prioritizing the roundtable’s 64 sub-recommendations, landing on four as collective priorities that were framed in a letter to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada Jonathan Wilkinson which put into context why these priorities are important in today’s ever changing climate.

“Our organizations demonstrate how CBWM efforts play an important role filling gaps in our national knowledge around water health… CBWM networks are nimble, responsive and able to adapt quickly to the monitoring challenges climate change presents; CBWM data can be used alongside agency-collected data to address the key objectives of the new Canada Water Agency; and Indigenous CBWM programs can realize nation-to-nation water-quality commitments while improving understanding of water with vital knowledge from Indigenous communities.”

Letter to the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada