Measuring Water Health with Bioindicators - WC135 MarApr 2024 - Magazine - Page 27
Measuring Water Health with Bioindicators
Living Lakes Canada
Examining benthic macroinvertebrates
during a biomonitoring workshop with the
Friends of Cherry Creek in Kimberley, BC.
treme temperatures and moisture levels, unlike the waterbodies
whose data CABIN was built on.
“The bugs that evolved to live here, they evolved to tolerate
extremes,” explains Iain Philips, Senior Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Ecologist at the Water Security Agency. He’s developed a
localized biomonitoring program called the Saskatchewan Condition Assessment of Lotic Ecosystems, or SCALE, for assessing
the integrity of water bodies in the region.
As a result of the differences in geographic factors, the
benthic macroinvertebrates and other organisms commonly
seen in other parts of Canada simply aren’t found in water
bodies in the plains. But that doesn’t mean that these water
bodies are unhealthy or not equally thriving. They just have a
different norm.
With water bodies in these areas drying up completely quite
often, the insects that the biomonitoring field looks for as
indicators can’t survive. That doesn’t mean these waterbodies
have lost all their life. It just means that who and what’s there
looks different.
“That doesn’t mean that we can’t affect them,” Philips clarifies. “No matter what, we can have pollution that’s bad enough
that they’re gone. But, for the middle ground to low levels of
pollution that we might be able to detect in, say, the Fraser River Valley or in the boreal systems in Canada, you really won’t
see much response in these streams.”
Philips hopes to eventually integrate SCALE with CABIN to
help stakeholders capture more data and understand if stressors
or human activity are challenging the ecosystem health of rivers
and streams in the Northern Great Plains.
These continued efforts to develop, collect, and analyze data
from aquatic ecosystems across Canada are helping to fill the
current knowledge gap. While we may not know everything
there is to these environments, one thing everyone involved in
freshwater biomonitoring does know is that bugs rule.
WAT E R C A N A D A . N E T
Take it from Philips. “They’re the unseen foundation of everything around you that you value.”
Whether your interests lie in safe drinking water, fresh food,
or any part of nature, insects are there helping to clean, pollinate,
and feed the foundation of what we value and everything above
them.
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WATER C AN ADA • M ARCH/APRIL 2024
27