Designing Provincial-Scale Water Monitoring Networks to Meet Future Needs
The symposium continued on Day Two with a presentation from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. The presentation focused on the province-wide stream water and groundwater monitoring networks that are currently being overseen by the Ministry of the Environment in partnership with Conservation Authorities and participating municipalities. These networks monitor ambient (baseline) stream water quality conditions at about 400 sites and groundwater levels and chemistry conditions at about 470 sites.
They discussed how the networks currently support numerous activities including: source water protection planning, water allocation, setting water quality standards, recognition of emerging issues, trends, and correlations, understanding relationships between precipitation and groundwater levels, etc. – all leading to informed resource management decisions. They also touched on an assessment of the two networks for their ability to act as tools in recognizing climate change signals on the water resources and to assist in adaptation.
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