IDP 2020-Water Balance, Water Quantity and Water Quality Data

Responsible Care of Watersheds

Dr. Judy Stewart, an expert on municipal law and the environment has recently published a paper that addresses her title question "Do recent amendments to Alberta's Municipal Government Act enable management of surface water resources and air quality?" The SLWSS has demonstrated how watershed management could be improved by adoption of the principles of the …

The Sylvan Lake Groundwater Situation in Perspective and Pictures

The Sylvan Lake watershed and its supply of groundwater are dependent on a fine balance between incoming and outgoing water. The net amount is absorbed and stored underground in the soil, porous and permeable geological glacial deposits, and local aquifers and becomes available for domestic and agricultural use. The following ERCB/AGS maps included in this …

8 metres of precipitation fell on Sylvan Lake but the level hardly changed over 14 years!

The graphical record of precipitation as recorded by Alberta Agriculture for the two townships that contain the Sylvan Lake watershed, plus a decade of lake level data measured by Environment Canada's National Hydrological Service, are compiled here. The surface of the lake received about 8 metres of cumulative precipitation in the period 2000-2016: Between 2000: …

The Biodiversity Monitoring Institute Reports on Alberta

The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) has released a series of reports that can be used to observe changes in land use and environmental variables. See these web pages: Land Cover Human Footprint Map Species Some  of the map products will be useful for monitoring of the Sylvan Lake watershed, however the resolution is too …

Juno Beach Comes to Sylvan Lake

The shoreline of Sylvan Lake is changing as McMansions replace those old time family summer cottages. Architectural, environmental and aesthetic standards seem to be flexible. Living by Water principles that help property owners manage water balance and preserve the riparian zone with recommended low impact development and landscaping standards in some cases have apparently been …

Sylvan Lake Shoreline Impairment Video Surveys

The Sylvan Lake shoreline has been surveyed twice using airborne video cameras to record the impairment of the riparian zone by property owners, once in 2002 for the Alberta Conservation Association and again in 2007 by Alberta SRD together with Fisheries and Oceans. These are valuable records of the cumulative effects of human impact on …