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Guest Editorial: Watershed Management Planning
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Guest Editorial: Watershed Management Planning
Jay White, Aquality Environmental Consulting Ltd.

Watershed management planning is a relatively new concept in Alberta, loosely based on an integrated resource management (IRM) method of managing the environment and natural resources to ensure sustainable development. With the announcement of Alberta's Water for Life Strategy, grassroots and other organized watershed associations are becoming more involved with IRM and watershed management planning.

Aquality Environmental Consulting Ltd. is currently partnering with Timberline to provide map products and other digital data for the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance (NSWA). Data were acquired from partner agencies such as Alberta Sustainable Resource development, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada - Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, and Ducks Unlimited Canada for a State of the Watershed project. This report, which includes hard copy map products, will assist the NSWA and its member organizations with their ongoing watershed management planning and outreach programs.

The NSWA project covers the North Saskatchewan watershed from the Saskatchewan glacier to Alberta's border with Saskatchewan. This is one of the largest resource inventories underway in Alberta, and is being undertaken by a team lead by Aquality. This report does not simply focus on the main stem of the river and its tributaries, but includes a summary of landscape disturbances, because of the understanding that water quality is largely influenced by upland activities within a watershed. For example, a recent Alberta Agriculture Food and Rural Development (AESA) stream survey found that the best predictor of water quality in streams is the intensity of agriculture in the upstream watershed. Streams with medium and high agricultural intensities show poorer water quality, with increased concentrations of nutrients and bacteria. One of the main goals of this State of the Watershed inventory is to quantify landscape disturbances within the basin that have the potential to impact water quality.

A panel of NSWA stakeholders and resource experts met to identify a suite of environmental indicators that should be used to assess watershed health status and trends. The indicators and their measures (metrics) will be used for future performance checking to assess the cumulative impacts of land use on water quality, quantity and biodiversity. The following 15 indicators were chosen by the NSWA panel:

  1. Land Use: Riparian health
  2. Land Use: Linear development (roads, seismic, pipelines, etc.)
  3. Land Use: Land use inventory
  4. Land Use: Livestock density
  5. Land Use: Wetland inventory
  6. Water Quality: Surface water quality index (AENV model)
  7. Water Quality: E.coli
  8. Water Quality: Phosphorus (TP, SRP)
  9. Water Quality: Pesticides
  10. Water Quantity: Water allocations by sector
    (agriculture, municipal, industrial-licences), consumption and return flows
  11. Water Quantity: Groundwater Extraction
  12. Bioindicator: Aquatic macrophytes
  13. Bioindicator: Fish (population estimates)
  14. Bioindicator: Vegetation types (AVI)
  15. Bioindicator: Benthic invertebrates

Using the digital data provided by project partners, Timberline and Aquality have produced high resolution maps for each of the 18 subwatersheds, showing the above indicators where data exists. These sub basin maps will be the centerpiece of the State of the Watershed Report. The report will be available from the NSWA by the end of April, 2004.

For more information about this project please contact:
Jay White, President, Aquality Environmental Consulting Ltd. (780.433.9414)
Sharon Willianen, Manager, North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance (780.496.3474)

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On the Web

http://www.geographynetwork.ca
An online resource for finding and sharing geographic content, including maps and data, from many of Canada's leading providers.

http://www.pfc.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/fires/disturbance/top_ten_e.html
Fires and pests - view the outbreak history of the top ten natural disturbance agents in British Columbia.

http://sfm-1.biology.ualberta.ca/english/home/
Sustainable Forest Management Network homepage - features current research projects, publications, and links to related resources.

http://www.randomlengths.com/base.asp?s1=Daily_WoodWire
A source of wood products industry information, news, and prices, based out of the United States. The Daily Woodwire section includes regular updates on the US-Canada lumber trade issue.

http://www.2003firestorm.gov.bc.ca/firestormreport/default.html
Read the recently released, independent review of the Province of B.C.'s response to last summer's wildfires.

Know of a link that others would be interested in? Email it to our attention.



Species at Risk in British Columbia
Dan Bernier - Timberline, Prince George

The diversity of species and ecosystems in British Columbia is remarkable,with habitats ranging from coastal rainforests to dry deserts dominated by bunchgrass; from the warm habitats of the Garry oak ecosystems, to the cold but often lush meadows of the alpine tundra. Throughout the province, many species and ecosystems are rare with a very limited natural distribution. Other species and ecosystems have become endangered due to a reduction in habitat, primarily from urban, agricultural and forestry practices. Managing these "Species at Risk" has become increasingly important in the past ten years, and the challenge to address the special requirements of Species at Risk has also increased.

Timberline Forest Inventory Consultants has been involved with the management of Species at Risk for several years, providing professional advice to forest licencees and other interested parties around British Columbia. Together with Alpha Wildlife Research and Management, Timberline has recently completed two field guides to Species at Risk in British Columbia. The objective of the field guides, funded primarily by forest licencees, is to promote awareness of issues concerning species at risk, and to allow forestry workers (and others) to identify these species and ecosystems when they are encountered in the forests of British Columbia.

The first field guide is entitled "A Field Guide to Species at Risk in Canfor's Planning Areas in the North-Central Interior of British Columbia". This guidebook was sponsored by Canadian Forest Products Ltd. in Prince George to provide a tool for their staff and contractors to identify and report incidences of Species at Risk when encountered in their daily forestry operations. The field guides are just one of many tools Timberline has helped develop to assist this forestry company in the management of species at risk.

The second field guide is entitled "A Field Guide to Species at Risk in the Coast Forest Region of British Columbia". International Forest Products and the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection co-sponsored the production of this field guide that provides guidance for the identification of all federally-listed Species at Risk found throughout the coastal ecosystems of British Columbia. Again, ecologists from Timberline teamed up with experts from Alpha Wildlife Resource and Management to produce a very high quality field guide. In addition to providing Interfor with hundreds of copies of the field guide, the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection is selling copies of the field guide to the general public at http://publications.gov.bc.ca/.


Cost-effective Solution for Forestry Data Management

Over the past few years, the forestry sector has seen an increasing trend towards enterprise data management systems to manage both tabular and spatial information. Forestry companies are looking to these "all encompassing" systems to meet stewardship obligations, improve planning capabilities, achieve accurate results, improve business flow, and ultimately reduce costs. However, these complex systems have an initial cost to purchase and implement that can put them out of the reach of many smaller forestry companies.

INFORM's TheForestManager Application Service Provider (ASP) is a cost-effective approach to data management for small and medium-sized companies that may not have the staff or computing infrastructure to maintain an integrated forestry management system.

The application service gives forestry staff remote access to their data, and TheForestManager software, via the Internet. The client's data and TheForestManager are both hosted by INFORM on secure data warehouse and application servers. As a result, the client receives all of the 'big system benefits' offered by TheForestManager while being able to concentrate on their core business - forestry, not application and data maintenance.

In north central British Columbia, TheForestManager ASP solution has been successfully deployed to Carrier Lumber Ltd. for over 1.5 years, and is currently being put into service for Apollo Forest Products Ltd., and Lakeland Mills Ltd. All three companies have chosen TheForestManager for its cost-effectiveness and capability to manage the data associated with harvest planning, silviculture obligations, roads management, and provincial government submissions.

All three companies have also chosen Timberline for their data management and mapping services support, including spatial and tabular data maintenance, analysis, ad hoc mapping and reporting, template development and quality assurance. As their collective GIS services provider, Timberline is able to increase efficiencies by consolidating shared requests and developing templates for commonly used maps, reports, etc. The results include quicker turn-around times and cost-sharing opportunities for the group.

INFORM Network for Management Systems Limited is a technology company focused on building resource management applications. INFORM is jointly owned by TELUS and Timberline Forest Inventory Consultants. Both Timberline and INFORM are pleased to work in partnership to provide this innovative, cost-effective service.

For more information, please contact:
Steve Lipscomb at INFORM, Victoria (250.480.3306), or
Jennifer McGill at Timberline, Prince George (250.562.2628)

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