WATERSHED REPORTSA national assessment of Canada’s freshwater

ECOSYSTEMS IN PERILThe first nationwide assessment of Canada’s freshwater found significant evidence of disruption to watersheds crucial for our health, economy and the wellbeing of wildlife, resulting from urbanization, forestry, municipal and industrial pollution, agricultural runoff, climate change, pipeline incidents, oil and gas development, hydropower dams and other activities.

Four years of research by WWF-Canada has revealed that every sub-watershed in Canada has already been impacted by climate change, more than half have experienced significant habitat loss, and water quality is merely fair or poor in almost two thirds of the sub-watersheds with data.

Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that, while we can say with certainty the stress human activity is placing on watersheds, this research exposes the dearth of health indicator data: As a result, it’s impossible to know the depth to which human activity is harming our most valuable resource.

Clearly, Canada needs an ongoing, standardized national freshwater monitoring and reporting system if we hope to make evidence-based decisions about this resource on a national level.

Local assessments are essential for freshwater management, but wildlife don’t adhere to municipal or provincial water-management boundaries, especially as the climate changes and populations migrate in search of more suitable living conditions. As home to 20 per cent of freshwater in an increasingly hot and thirsty world, Canada has a duty to get it right – for people and for wildlife.

© Mike Ambach / WWF-Canada

SUMMARYCAN

2017

The popularly held belief that Canada is a nation of pristine lakes and river has been dispelled. This first nationwide assessment reveals our freshwater ecosystems are in peril. Because Canada fails to sufficiently monitor freshwater health as a whole, it’s impossible to know the depth to which human activity harms Canada’s most valuable resource for communities and wildlife. And because of that, we can’t yet make evidence-based decisions about our most precious resource.

The health assessment measured water flow, water quality, benthic invertebrates and fish. These indicators represent key elements of the freshwater ecosystems commonly monitored in most Canadian jurisdictions.

The threat assessment measured pollution, habitat loss, fragmentation, water use, invasive species, alterations to water flow and climate change. These indicators were selected in accordance with current literature on threats to freshwater systems.

Data deficiency for health indicators:Of the 167 sub-watersheds in this country, 110 are lacking the data necessary to paint a baseline picture of watershed health.

Data deficiency overall: Sufficient data for all key health and threat indicators is being collected in only 14 of our 167 sub-watersheds.

Water quality: 42 of the 67 sub-watersheds with available water quality indicator data have “fair” or “poor” water quality.

Pollution: 60 of 167 sub-watersheds received a high or very high pollution score due to activities such as mining, oil and gas development, pipeline spills, wastewater treatment, pulp and paper processing, and agricultural runoff.

Climate change:21 sub-watersheds are already experiencing a high level of impact from climate change (a reported indicator for all sub-watersheds), 105 are experiencing moderate impact, and the remainder are experiencing low impact.

Habitat loss: 93 sub-watersheds have experienced significant habitat loss (a reported indicator for all sub-watersheds) due to agriculture, urbanization and forest loss.

Fragmentation: 61 of the 142 sub-watersheds with data available on habitat fragmentation are highly or very highly fragmented

THE FINDINGSThough data deficiency is a serious obstacle to painting a full picture of the state of our freshwater ecosystems, the data that is available tells us Canadians should be seriously concerned about water quality, pollution, fragmentation, habitat loss and climate change.

WHAT WE DIDTo arrive at our conclusions, we conducted a health assessment to determine the state of health of each sub-watershed, and a threat assessment, to learn what human activities are disturbing each of the 167 sub-watersheds that make up Canada’s 25 watersheds. Before starting, the framework was vetted by leading experts and academics, to ensure our methodology reflected the best available knowledge on ecosystem health. The assessments measured the following factors:

HEALTH

Figure 1: Overall health assessment – rate of water flow, water quality, benthic invertebrates and fish – in Canada’s 167 sub-watersheds.

Very poor

Poor

Fair

Good

Very good

Data deficient

It’s impossible to determine a clear picture of watershed health because data are lacking for almost two-thirds of sub-watersheds. Insufficient information prevented us from assigning a score for at

least two out of four health metrics. The greatest information deficiencies are benthic invertebrates (bugs that are

important indicators of water quality) and fish. Watersheds of particular concern include the North

and South Saskatchewan prairie watersheds, Peace Athabasca, the Ottawa Region,

and the Great Lakes.

STRESSORS

Figure 2: Overall assessment of pollution, climate change, alteration of flows, water use, habitat loss, invasive species and fragmentation in Canada’s 167 sub-watersheds.

Very high

High

Moderate

Low

Very low

No threat

Unknown threat

None of Canada’s 167 sub-watersheds are immune to all of the seven threats to watershed health: pollution, climate change, alteration of flows, waters use, habitat loss, invasive species

and fragmentation. Overall, 53 sub-watersheds exhibit high or very high levels of disturbance; only 84 are experiencing low or very low disturbance. Considering that most of the population, the

highest road densities, and much of Canada’s agriculture, farming and industry

are found further south, it isn’t surprising that watersheds in

southern latitudes are more heavily impacted than those in Canada’s North.

RECOMMENDATIONS To modernize freshwater management for the challenges of the 21st century, Canada needs to do the following:

1. Invest in a standardized national monitoring system to track the state of freshwater as climate change and increased population put more pressure on freshwater ecosystems and wildlife. a. This national monitoring system should include

citizen science. b. It must account for local conditions like higher

naturally occurring concentrations of metals; include real-time, monthly and annual standardized reporting; and be made available through newly created nationally linked regional hubs.

c. Priority should be on areas where significant resource development is proposed.

2. The assessment methodology must account for regional differences, require consistent protocols on analysis to guarantee reliability, and be developed to integrate diverse datasets.

3. Because freshwater is a public resource, data should be open, available and accessible – whether collected by government, academia or industry.

4. And if we hope to understand trends over time, all levels of government must commit to conducting standardized freshwater assessments every three to five years.

NEXT STEPS• We will continue to assess watersheds as more

data becomes available.

• Our findings and methodology will be open and accessible, and we will work with partners to build accessible regional databases to integrate with Watershed Reports.

• We will work with partners and community groups to develop a national citizen science program.

• Watershed Reports will be used to identify the most pressing issues undermining the wellbeing of freshwater wildlife and build solutions to improve the health of freshwater ecosystems.

Explore the full results of the assessments at watershedreports.wwf.ca.

© 1986 Panda symbol WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature (also known as World Wildlife Fund). ® “WWF” is a WWF Registered Trademark.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONElizabeth Hendriks Vice president, freshwater, WWF-Canada (416) 489-8800, ext. 7354 ehendriks@wwfcanada.org