Paige Thurston

Paige Thurston, Manager of Living Lakes Canada (LLC’s) Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Framework, is excited about the achievements the program has made over the past few years, including the Columbia Basin Water Hub and the Cottonwood Creek Restoration Project. Living Lakes Canada facilitates collaboration in monitoring, restoration, and policy development initiatives for the long-term protection of lakes, rivers, wetlands and watersheds in Canada.

Paige has been with Living Lakes for four years. She emphasizes that LLC’S intent when collaboratively laying out the water monitoring framework was to complement existing monitoring and stewardship work taking place across the Columbia Basin, adding capacity based on requests for further support or monitoring. In particular, Living Lakes provides hydrometric (streamflow) monitoring; gathering this type of data requires specialized equipment and expertise, often resulting in organizations requesting their support.

The water monitoring network was designed in collaboration with communities, local governments, First Nations, local stewardship groups, water works irrigation systems, the Province of BC, and the private sector.

“The progress has been amazing. We are now at a point where the network is generating data that we can analyze. I am excited to be sharing some results, and it’s rewarding to learn more about how the information is being used by all organizations involved – the list just keeps growing.”

Many of the monitoring sites are operated or overseen by LLC’s community partners. “We have close relationships and collaboration with the various parts of our communities across the region. We are working with First Nations, local stewardship groups, and local governments to run a lot of these monitoring sites,” Paige explains.

The Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Framework is unique in being community-driven, while also operating on a large scale, with over 140 sites being monitored. Another special feature of the program is how LLC combines both scientific needs, in terms of tracking climate impacts on the region, with community priorities and interests.

“I think a lot of monitoring networks trend towards either one or the other; for example, they reflect what the community is interested in, or they are more science-focused and not related to the community needs or climate adaptation. The way LLC has paired these two elements together is what makes this methodology innovative.”

More information on the Water Monitoring Framework can be found in this recent collaborative paper co-authored by Paige, “Water security through community-directed monitoring in the Canadian Columbia Basin: democratizing watershed data.”

When Living Lakes and the Columbia Basin water stewardship community began to envision a coordinated water monitoring network (in 2017), they also identified the need for a repository to hold all the data from not only LLC’s monitoring programs, but also from the other groups that are doing this work across the region. As a result, the Columbia Basin Water Hub was created, which securely stores and archives data, making it easily accessible. There are now over 50 contributors to the Water Hub.

“We are lucky in this region to have so many small groups that are gathering important data and doing the field work. They bring a wealth of knowledge and information, with some monitoring programs going back many years. The Water Hub is providing a place where groups can upload their findings, so that over time we can see long-term trends. The various organizations also receive some recognition for all the work that they are doing, which is fantastic.”

The data has been used in many ways, such as helping to inform restoration or conservation projects, for example on creeks providing habitat for fish or other species. Many of the 140 monitoring sites were selected based on community-identified needs, leading to information from these sites being directly used by those community groups. Local governments and regional districts also use monitoring results to assess water supply for communities, including groundwater supplies, and how that might change over time. Municipal and regional governments are also assessing the watersheds to inform their sustainability plans for community adaptation and growth, as well as looking at flood preparedness, drought response, and other emergency preparedness measures.

Paige explains that “Living Lakes is also looking at how this information can support communities from an emergency preparedness and climate resilience perspective, for example with the recent Argenta Water Resources Inventory for fire suppression. The data is being used to understand where wildfire response professionals can find water on the landscape, and how to access it, to increase the efficiency of response to a fire.”

Paige is also excited to be involved with the planning of several restoration projects, especially now that her Masters in Restoration & Ecology from the University of Idaho is very close to completion. She is looking forward to putting that knowledge to work, moving these restoration projects forward.

One of the projects is focused on Cottonwood Creek, which flows right through the city of Nelson into Kootenay Lake. Because it is an urban creek in need of better care, there have been various initiatives and projects focused on Cottonwood for decades. In recent years, LLC has partnered with the Nelson District Rod & Gun Club and Friends of Kootenay Lake Stewardship Society to reignite this movement. In order to better understand the impacts on the creek, several watershed-wide assessments were completed.

Following the publication of the State of the Watershed Assessment, LLC hosted a community meeting, summarized in this paper.

“The community meeting in the spring of 2024 affirmed how much the community cares about the creek. There is a considerable potential on Cottonwood to improve the habitat, and it’s a high visibility site for the community to see what restoration of an urban creek could look like. It is such a great spot to engage with community! Based on the recent Fish Habitat Assessment, we are targeting a specific site for aquatic habitat restoration in the lower reach of the watershed, just above the dog park. We are looking at it from a holistic ecosystem perspective and trying to improve the habitat for multiple species and life stages.”

Paige grew up on Vancouver Island where she developed her love of the outdoors, which eventually brought her to the Kootenays. She always knew she wanted to work outdoors and contribute to a good cause, and she credits Selkirk College’s School of Environment and Geomatics as being a great place to begin her education in this field.