Whether you live, work or play in the Credit River watershed, or if you’re just curious about watershed health, you should be checking-out CVC’s Credit River Watershed Health Report at www.creditvalleyca.ca/watershedhealthreport .
The Watershed Health Report uses data collected by Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) through the Integrated Watershed Monitoring Program (IWMP) over many years of monitoring theCreditRiverwatershed.
Since fall 2012, CVC has been releasing individual chapters describing up-to-date information on status and trends in a variety of indicators of watershed health. To date, chapters have been released [LC1] on land use, climate and climate change, groundwater levels, groundwater quality, streamflow, and fluvial geomorphology (the form and function of rivers and interactions between rivers and the landscape).
For example, Chapter 3 on land use reports that from 1996 to 2006, the population of theCreditRiverwatershed grew to 758,000 from 573,000. In Chapter 4, CVC reveals that since 1999, annual air temperatures in the watershed have averaged 1.4 degrees higher than the long-term average (ie. normal). Chapter 5 looks at groundwater levels and their influence on groundwater quality. Approximately half of the flow of theCreditRivercomes from groundwater which is used by thousands of people in the watershed and is critical for maintaining the river’s ecosystem.
The Watershed Health Report is significant because it tracks changes in the watershed over the long-term, providing a comprehensive analysis about its health. Further chapters will continue to be released in the coming months.