Water Monitoring for Climate Resilience in the RDCK

Living Lakes Canada Photo

DESCRIPTION: Living Lakes Canada’s (LLC) Columbia Basin Water Monitoring Framework (CBWMF) operations in the RDCK are fundamentally important for conservation within Electoral Areas D, E, and H, as they directly address the region’s greatest emerging threat: climate-driven water scarcity and insecurity. Utilizing the CBWMF network of stations, the project closes critical water availability data gaps by continuing and re-establishing long-term hydrometric, lake, and climate monitoring. This foundational, high-quality data is necessary for future-proofing local governance and ecosystem health against accelerating environmental changes.

The RDCK region faces increasing climate pressures, including intense droughts, altered precipitation patterns, and shifts in snowpack dynamics. Concurrently, the number of government-run hydrometric stations has significantly decreased across the Columbia Basin, while resource demand continues to grow. This poses a pervasive data deficit, especially in smaller watersheds, where available government data fails to capture rapid environmental changes at the local level. Consequently, critical local decisions — including land-use planning, water management, aquatic habitat protection, and emergency preparedness—are being made without the necessary data, leaving communities and ecosystems vulnerable.

To remedy this deficit, LLC’s comprehensive monitoring scope covers key watersheds across the three electoral areas (D, E, and H), focusing on three long-term data types: hydrometric data, climate data, and snow survey data. Hydrometric and climate data will help improve the watershed modelling tool that has been developed using the datasets produced from the previously-funded phases of this project. The snow survey data contributes directly to the BC Provincial Flood Forecasting Centre, enhancing regional early warning and community safety.

Note: this project builds on Living Lakes Canada’s previous Kootenay Watershed Science project.

OBJECTIVE: The project’s primary objectives are to maintain the operation of 12 long-term hydrometric and climate monitoring sites across RDCK Electoral Areas D, E, and H, and to successfully re-establish a water monitoring program for Winlaw and Trozzo Creeks (Electoral Area H). This includes:

1) Installing permanent flow monitoring stations with new sensors;

2) Conducting benchmark surveys for data verification; taking five stream flow measurements per creek annually to capture peak and low flow periods; and

3) Collecting 24 water quality samples per creek annually to measure indicators like turbidity and coliforms.