The impact of agricultural drainage and resulting non-point source nutrient export on water quality is a growing concern across the entire Prairie Pothole Region. In Canada, the three Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan) are currently revising and reviewing surface water management strategies and have recognized the need for wetland restoration and conservation to help maintain and restore water quality, and sustain watershed health. However, unlike the US portion of the PPR, there is no complete wetland inventory for the Canadian portion of the PPR. As a result it is not currently possible to target wetland conservation and restoration efforts to maximize water quality benefits. This project would complete and harmonize the wetland inventory for the entire Souris River watershed and examine the link between current and historical wetland distribution and water quality. In doing so the project would demonstrate the value of a completed Canadian Wetland Inventory for addressing inter-jurisdictional water quality issues as well as how to best target wetland conservation and restoration efforts to maximize agricultural production while sustaining and enhancing water quality and overall watershed health.
The overall goal of this project is to determine the role of wetlands in mitigating nutrient export in a large hyper-eutrophic prairie watershed and to generate the necessary information to develop a methodology for targeting wetland restoration and conservation efforts in the PPR.The specific objectives of the project are:Complete and harmonize a wetland inventory for the entire Souris River watershed.Conduct a change detection analysis in 9 sub-watersheds of the Souris River watershed.Determine the relationship between current water quality and landscape wetland metric such as wetland area intact, wetland area lost, wetland storage intact, and wetland storage lost.Develop a methodology to target wetland conservation and restoration efforts to maximize water quality benefits.
