SSI FreshWater Catalogue

THE SSI FRESHWATER CATALOGUE

A Salt Spring Island (SSI) Water Preservation Society (WPS)
Freshwater & Watersheds Stewardship Project

AS OF 2024/10/07 THIS WEBSITE IS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED
- please contact the WPS for further details - president@ssiwaterpreservationsociety.ca
or ssiwps@gmail.com

The home page of the SSI FreshWater Catalogue, a WPS, Watershed Stewardship Project
- A project created largely by Salt Spring Island freshwater watershed stewardship volunteers. Thank You! -

This Water Preservation Society (WPS), FreshWater Catalogue (FWC) website is for those interested in freshwater, on an island - Salt Spring.

To see a FreshWater Catalogue & Stqeeye' Learning Society stewardship field-team in action - watch our WPS, FRESHWATER SALTSPRING film short. Or consider donating towards, or contributing to, our planned SHAPED BY WATER documentary film!

Our FWC website...

Designed for folks who might be interested in aspects of freshwater on an island (SSI), and/or those who are interested in volunteering in our island freshwater stewardship project. Have a look at the following FWC webpages to learn more:

The FreshWater Catalogue - this page, what is the FWC, and how might you get involved?
Background Reading - something for everyone interested in digging deeper into what is freshwater
News - more in-depth news updates on our FreshWater Catalogue project
Resources - for those who want to drill-deep and understand more about our island's watersheds and its freshwater
Field Notes - information for our Freshwater Catalogue field volunteers
HomeOffice - information for our FreshWater Catalogue home volunteers, and for folks who might be interested in being involved .

Hopefully there is something for everyone (interested...) on our website. From the stewardship of "watersheds" (not the bottom of the garden, well-in-shed variety) , to contributing to science (aka "water balance and budgets", and island freshwater model(s) ground-truthing).

Check these additional links out for more on our FWC project objectives, and for more on our host organisation, the SSI Water Preservation Society.

A very first "The" SSI freshwater catalogue(d) map. This island freshwater map builds on CRD and Province datasets, and incorporates some of the field, and home office work, of our FreshWater Catalogue volunteers! There are still lots of things "missing" from this freshwater perspective, including: our FWC creeks-to-be-named (I - XXXIII) collection, some FWC island watershed boundary corrections (unless water flows up hill...), and appropriate names for a large number of creeks and watersheds...TBD.

A "Freshwater on an Island" Starting Point - Do You Know Your Watershed?

Knowing your SSI watershed is a great place to make a start on understanding surface freshwater on Salt Spring Island and, if you interested in knowing where you are, you might be interested in getting involved in our island's freshwater cataloguing (FWC) project.

To see the island's surface freshwater bodies, and the watersheds (outlines courtesy of the CRD) in an animation, have a look at this Google Earth perspective of Salt Spring Island!

And for more() on what is going on on the island FWC field-work front browse our "active" field areas (and wells) and other local features (layers) of interest via our SSIFWC webmap.

Our "The" SSI freshwater catalogue(d) map builds on the CRD 2018, SSI Watersheds map.

Interested in a SSI Watershed Walk?

We now do island "watershed walks" in several island areas so that you can learn more about a (or your) watershed. These walks can be arranged for schools, for local communities and for the general public. To find out more about these walks and when the next one might be happening, please register your interest with the SSIFWC Project Lead.

Interested in being a FWC project volunteer?

Our FWC project is about raising community awareness of the island’s water diversity, helping develop island watershed (stewardship) communities, and supporting data gathering for island water resource quantification and (locally) water quality, to help inform island watershed preservation/management activities. Have a look at some images of our volunteers in the field!

Read more about our field and homeoffice volunteers and roles,
or visit our regular FWC Volunteers Needed Exchange post.

Ready to volunteer? Please complete the FWC volunteer questionnaire and return it to the SSI FWC Project Lead.

Our FWC project

Our SSI FreshWater Catalogue (FWC) Project gathers "baseline" surface freshwater field (and now well) data across the island's watersheds, and is a part of a wider, island freshwater, information gathering effort. In a number of island areas we are collaborating with other stewardship groups (SLS, TSS, GINP, RainCoast) in our field data collection.

Our FWC datasets help support an improved understanding of our island's water quantity (with some water quality aspects), to support the management of, what may be, a delicate Salt Spring Island freshwater balancing act (between nature and the community).

Community education and outreach form an important part of our project programme.

Note - An island's natural systems (forests, wetlands, creeks) and rainfall, provide important (ecosystem) services. The natural systems provide for freshwater collection, storage and filtering, for use in that natural world and for the island's communities. Understanding something of how these work, provides an informed view of an island's "water balance", and (perhaps) informs how to manage this delicate balance...

Less (water used) is More (for the island’s natural systems and for our community)

Monitoring/measuring some of the various surface freshwater components that drive our island's freshwater "INs" and freshwater "OUTs", and groundwater wells that help calibrate these surface measurements, all help understand the island's water quantity (resources) or its' water balance - this is what the SSI FreshWater Catalogue is all about.

Our FWC website

These webpages provide background reading on (island) freshwater, FWC project news updates, "island-oriented" resources on freshwater, and Watershed Notes. With information on our island's watersheds (water quantity and quality), information on how our "citizen science" project work may inform SSI's developing freshwater resource models, school resources and data and image access.

For our FWC volunteers, this website provides field and homeoffice notes, including what and how to collect in the field, the project workflow, and important project administrative updates and tips, to keep folks informed.

Our FWC field locations

Our SSI FWC webmap shows where we have been active, our regular measurement locations (over 6,500 field sample points, with multiple data types (flow, chemistry, +) and basic charts for our regular sites.

Additional map overlays are available from the drop-down menus on the left of the webmap display (these currently only work well in a desktop web browser). Switching these map overlays on/off provides more contextual information, on the FWC data, and on island freshwater usage and on natural controls on our island's freshwater.

Our FWC Volunteer Bulletins

Volunteer Bulletins give our field, homeoffice volunteer and island freshwater interest groups updates, on what we have been doing, and where.

Please drop a line to the SSI FWC Project Lead if interested in receiving these occasional FWC project bulletins.

For our broader island community interest group

Our SSI FreshWater Catalogue Watershed Stewardship Facebook Page shares information on current FWC activities, gives links to other freshwater, SSI-oriented, freshwater resources, and upcoming watery calendar events that might be of interest.

And, of course, we have this SSIFWC website for more information on an island's watersheds!

The monthly SSIFWC Which Creek Is it (WCIT) competition

Via our SSIFWC Watershed Stewardship Facebook group, we run a monthly Which Creek Is It (WCIT) competition "spotlighting" one of the island's many creeks - do you know your creek and/or watershed? And, with the competition's answer (and with our FWC website's Watershed Notes), we provide local insights into the featured creek and watershed.

Our WCIT competition posts are shared with the various SSI community Facebook groups ("SSI Community Discussion Forum", "Meanwhile on Salt Spring Island…", "Salt Spring Island Forum - a place to discuss Salt Spring Island topics”), reaching more than 3,500 folks.

We are currently investigating if we can establish donations for a small WCIT competition prize for each month. If you are interested in donating for a competition prize please drop a line to the SSIFWC project lead. If you are interested in participating in our WCIT competition (spotlighting your creek?) please have a look at the competition rules.

Need More Information?

Have a look at our SSI FWC reports, our developing FWC Resources - "Watershed Notes" on our watershed stewardship areas and/or Other SSI Reporting. If you are a (potential) volunteer have a look at our volunteers in the field images and using equipment in the field images, and for more information our FWC stewardship "Field Notes" and our "Homeoffice" pages, to get a feel for what we do in our island stewardship project.

Something you would like to see on our FWC website? Please drop the SSI FWC Project Lead a line and we will try and fit it in.
Details of our SSI Water Preservation Society host.