NSWA Watershed Wednesday Webinars

Wednesday, February 5th: Natural Infrastructure and Wetland Health.

Speaker: Kristen Andersen - Natural Assets for Watershed Function

Kristen will discuss the vital role natural assets play in improving watershed function and drought resilience.

Kristen is a wetland scientist and restoration ecologist with 28 years of professional experience specializing in the design and implementation of wetland and stream restoration projects, wetland delineation, functional assessment, remote sensing, wetland monitoring, and has managed the regulatory and compensatory mitigation process for a variety of projects in Alberta and USA. Kristen is passionate as an educator and has been teaching wetland courses at the University of Alberta since 2010 including a course on wetland assessment and a course on wetland restoration and construction. She also teaches stream restoration workshops for stewardship groups and municipalities. Kristen’s background includes stormwater management and erosion and sediment control design and installation.

PAST:

December 4th, 2024 - Monitoring Freshwater Ecosystems: Collaborative Research & Indigenous-led Monitoring

Speaker 1: Benjamin Kissinger, Program Lead, fRI Research Water & Fish Program

A collaborative approach to modeling stream temperature along Alberta’s Eastern Slopes, fRI Research

The fRI Research Water and Fish Program has taken on the lead role in collating existing water temperature data for the province of Alberta.

Water temperature plays a critical role in shaping the distribution of fish species adapted to cold and low-productive environments, such as native salmonids. In Alberta, three salmonid species are federally listed as species at risk: Athabasca Rainbow Trout, Bull Trout, and Westslope Cutthroat Trout. The threat of warming waters through riparian habitat loss, climate change, and water use influences the available habitat for these cold-water species. To better quantify habitat availability, fRI Research has begun to model stream temperatures using spatial stream network models for Alberta’s Eastern Slopes region. To date this collaborative approach has collated data from over 15 organizations representing Indigenous, industry, NGO, and government organizations. Data continues to arrive, improving and increasing spatial coverage and model fit.

The outputs from this work will aid in the selection of locations for species recovery efforts, identifying critical cold-water habitats, and better understanding the watershed’s thermal sensitivity to climate and landscape change. Dr. Kissinger will be providing an overview of this exciting research project.

Dr. Kissinger is the Water and Fish Program Lead at fRI Research and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary. His research focuses on applied research questions that aim to improve the way people work in and around aquatic habitats. His main interests are water temperature, fish genetics, and population dynamics related to native trout recovery.

Speaker 2: Dr. Hughie Jones, Lead Research Scientist - Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation & Wakâ Mne Science & Culture Initiative

For decades Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation (ANSN) and its approximately 2200 members, located in Treaty Six Territory, have lived without access to safe, clean, and locally sourced drinking water. Their local water supply, Wakâ Mne (God’s Lake) - also known as Lac Ste. Anne - has experienced accelerated water quality decline as the pressures of climate change, industrial agriculture, mining, forestry, urbanization, illegal dumping, and recreation remain unrelenting.

ANSN community member and soil scientist, Dr. Hughie Jones founded the initiative after identifying a lack of capacity within his community to monitor environmental processes, climate, and environmental pollutants from industrial sources. In early 2019, Dr. Jones secured multi-year funding through the Indigenous Community Climate-Based Monitoring Program to pursue environmental monitoring and Traditional Knowledge documentation. The program applies knowledge held by ANSN elders to empower Indigenous culture and inform future strategies aimed at adaptation and mitigation. Dr. Jones will be providing an overview of this innovative initiative during his presentation.

Past Webinars:

November 6th, 2024: Agriculture and Water

Missed this webinar? Check out the recording on our Youtube Channel, here!

Nicole Seitz Vermeer, Water Quality Specialist with Alberta Agriculture & Irrigation: Nutrient Targets for Small Streams in Agricultural Watershed in Alberta

The transport of nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus, from agricultural areas into nearby waterbodies can result in excessive growth of algae and aquatic plants. This can alter fish habitat, reduce water conveyance for irrigation, and increase the cost of water treatment. Alberta’s agriculture sector has a vested interest in water protection and sustainable production, achievable through land and water management.

Numeric water quality guidelines for nutrients do not exist for small agricultural streams in Alberta. Seitz Vermeer will be discussing a project that aimed to recommend numeric nutrient target ranges for small streams in Alberta, based on natural region and watershed type. These target ranges can be voluntarily adopted by watershed management programs across the province and will help with the goal of continuous improvement of water quality and aquatic ecosystem health. Learn more here.

Nicole is a Water Quality Specialist and has been with Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation for 11 years. She holds a B.Sc. from the University of Lethbridge, and a M.Sc. from the University of Saskatchewan. Her past experience includes projects related to agricultural water quality, beneficial management practices, nutrient management, and aquatic invasive species. In her work, she strives to support the agriculture industry in making proactive decisions that optimize agricultural production and the stewardship of natural resources. She resides in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Chad Ritter, Acting Manager Agronomics with ALUS Parkland County Coordinator: ALUS Parkland - Highlights of Agricultural Stewardship

Chad was born and raised on a mixed farming operation located directly south of Stony Plain, AB in Parkland County, where he continues to farm alongside his father. Currently, their family farm consists of 600-800-acres of annual crops which include wheat, barley, and canola, with additional hay and pastureland to support their100-head cow-calf operation of commercial Simmental and Angus cattle. In his free time, Chad enjoys spending time outdoors, visiting the mountains, riding motorcycles, and of course anything farm related. Agriculture has always been a passion of his and he knew he wanted to work in the agricultural field when selecting a career. This goal led Chad to Lakeland College where he graduated from the Crop Technology diploma program in 2019. Overlapping with his post-secondary education, he began working for Parkland County as a summer student in 2018 where he assisted with the crop inspection program, monitoring crop fields for insects and disease. Chad returned to his crop inspection role for a second season in 2019 following his graduation from Lakeland College. He was fortunate enough to continue working for Parkland County following where he has worked in various roles such as Agronomics Assistant, Supervisor Agronomics, and now the current ALUS Coordinator, and acting Manager Agronomics.

October 16th, 2024: Bison in Alberta - The Ecology and Conservation of a Keystone Species

Missed this webinar? Check out the recording on our Youtube Channel.

David Bruinsma: Bison Conservation & Management in (and out of!) Elk Island National Park

David Bruinsma has been on the Resource Conservation team at Elk Island National Park since 2019 and has coordinated the park’s bison management program since 2022. He is passionate about continuing Elk Island’s important role in bison conservation, especially through transfers of surplus bison from the park to other conservation projects and to Indigenous communities. In addition to the bison program, Dave spends much of the spring and summer months focussed on monitoring Elk Island’s songbirds and Species at Risk (including bats and western toads). He has a background in avian ecology and Species at Risk, having worked elsewhere in western Canada on boreal and grassland songbird monitoring and recovery of burrowing owls and ferruginous hawks. Dave holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies and a master’s degree in Natural Resources Management. He lives in Edmonton with his wife, two sons, a dog, and two guinea pigs.

Wes Olsen: The Ecological Role of Bison

Bison once occupied most of North America and they had complex interactions with almost every other bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile that shared their ecosystems. Olsen brings to light a few of these fascinating relationships and explores the keystone role that bison continue to play wherever they are found.

After working for more than 40 years with this charismatic animal, Wes has developed an international reputation for his knowledge about both plains and wood bison. Wes has the unique ability to combine his extensive scientific knowledge about bison with his talents using graphite, water color, oil painting and mixed medium artwork to capture the buffalo and other wildlife in their natural environments.