Our FWC Reporting

Ongoing FWC reporting is available in the form of this website's SSI Watershed Notes and, more informally, via our SSI FreshWater Catalogue Watershed Stewardship Facebook Facebook Page and ad-hoc Volunteer Bulletins.

Work on the Fulford Bay, and associated watersheds discharging into, and impacting this area, is available from our 2022-2023 "Fulford Bay Stewardship Water Quality Pilot stewardship collaboration project - Pilot water quality report for streams discharging into W̱E¸NÁ¸NEĆ /Hwune’nuts (Fulford Harbour, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia) report, published and online.

Based on Living Lakes Community Based Water Monitoring interviews and reporting an article "Salt Spring Island FreshWater Catalogue Project Applied Reconciliation" and the value of our SSI FWC citizen science.  Also based on interviews a FWC, Community-based science raises water balance awareness on Salt Spring Island article is on a similar citizen science value theme.

A project report associated with our WPS, FWC SSI Foundation Spring 2019 grant funding, reviewing education/outreach implications and early citizen science observations is - Millson, J. A., 2020., SSI Foundation Spring 2019 Grant, S2019-11 Water Preservation Society (WPS), SSI FreshWater Catalogue (SSIFWC) 2019-2020 Grant Report.  

A project report associated with our  WPS, FWC SSI Foundation Spring 2020 grant funding, reviewing education/outreach implications, citizen science observations, plans and challenges, and a few accolades(!) from the reporting period is - Millson, J. A., 2021., "SSI Foundation Reporting 202104, Water Preservation Society, SSI FreshWater Catalogue (FWC). Spring 2020-2021 Grant Period, Award No. S202016 report.

Other FWC Reporting

Recent 2023 reporting includes the SSIFWC collaborative work on a "Preliminary study of water quality in streams discharging into Fulford Harbour", raising questions about land-based pollution.  Our FWC field data from the Weston Creek watershed area was used as a core component of the recent GW Consultants, 2022., Lake Weston Water Availability and Climate Change Assessment, study (p116 in link) undertaken on behalf of the CRD.

A WPS and SFU sponsored FWC - SFU 2020 summer project to review FWC surface water (chemistry/flow) data, and the use of this in the analysis, and quantification of groundwater contributions in SSI creeks (both in inflow & in outflow - discharge to sea) reported out in 2020 - Howe K., & Allen D., 2020 - Linkages between Stream Chemistry and Groundwater Chemistry, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, SFU.

Our 2019 - 2020 FWC field work programme was modified slightly to enable our project volunteers to contribute to a Water Rangers  WWF Canada-wide "water quality in data deficient subwatersheds" project and a Water Rangers WWF project report "Growing the Flow".

Salt Spring Island Watershed Protection Alliance (SSIWPA) Technical Working Group (TWG) discussions on the FWC project, and it's use in ongoing island water budget and ground water recharge models/mapping are captured in the minutes of the SSIWPA, TWG eg:

• 2020/07/14

• 2021/02/05

and of the agenda for the the SSIWPA Steering Committee Meetings eg:

• 2021/04/15

Other SSI Reporting

References to key SSI centric agency, stewardship group and other reports on freshwater are associated with this website's relevant Watershed Stewardship Note page(s).  For more reading on ongoing Salt Spring Island "water budget", "groundwater recharge potential" models and considerations of how to manage these (slightly off-topic), please refer to the following reports: 

• Salt Spring Island Groundwater Recharge Potential Report, 2019 GW Consultants, sponsored by the Islands Trust (IT)

• Salt Spring Aquifer Mapping and Monthly Groundwater Budget Analysis for Aquifers on Salt Spring Island, Golder 2019, sponsored by FLNRO and the MoE

• Shulba, W., 2020., Salt Spring Island Groundwater Monitoring presentation on the IT well monitoring programme.

• CRD, IT, NSSWD Salt Spring Island Watershed Protection Plan, 2023-2032.

And to keep abreast with this largely IT driven groundwater and freshwater sustainability agency work have a look at their Freshwater Sustainability website.  Note: the content of this website is currently (2022/01) not Salt Spring Island oriented, thought the methodologies and mapping products documented are similar to those envisaged/planned and ongoing for our island!

Several Gulf Islands and/or SSI papers (Allen et al.) are also useful background reading:

• Klassen and Allen, 2016.  Risk of Saltwater Intrusion in Coastal Bedrock  Aquifers: Gulf Islands, BC

• Larocque, E.,  Allen, D. M., and  Kirste D., 2015., The Hydrogeology of Salt Spring Island 

• Lapcevic, P., Kingerlee, A., Bickerton, G.,  & Carmichael, V., 2008., The Geochemistry  of Groundwater on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada 

• Kingerlee, A..and Lapcevic, P., Gulf Islands Ground Water Geochemistry  Project, Salt Spring Island.

• Innova, 2020., Salt Spring Island Water Service Optimization Study, December 2019 – December 2020, on behalf of the CRD and NSSWD.

The above articles provide important references for further SSI freshwater context and understanding.

For additional "technical reading" resources and technical reports, please refer to the SSI Watershed Protection Alliance (SSIWPA) Technical Library.

FWC in the Media

In the Driftwood, since our WPS, SSIFWC project's launch (in a blog-like order):

• 2023 our FWC work has been shared in a FWC Project dialogue with the BC Partnership for Water Sustainability.

• A WPS freshwater projects in the local news articles (again…), with our FreshWater Catalogue volunteer work, and our WPS film-making, Sulatiye’ (of the Stqeeye Learning Society), and Katie and Quyên (active Fulford Bay, FWC volunteers) featuring in the 2022/08 “The Best of Salt Spring Island” Driftwood magazine.  We were winners of the “best of environment” And “best use of visual medium” categories!

• A FreshWater Catalogue World Water Day meet-up at a local stewards home, and a World Water Day article in Driftwood on our FreshWater Catalogue project, 2022/03.

• Our educational events were in the field in the SSI Foundation 2020 Annual Report highlights in "Youth & Education" and "Foundation of Youth" 2021/06/30.

• An honourable FWC project mention in this Xwaaqw’um wetlands article (2019/10/24) 

• A recent three-years-in (now our fourth year) article "Citizen Science Project Maps Island Water Story" in the Driftwood!

• A topical FWC piece by one our FWC volunteers, reporting on advanced summer drought from a south island watershed "The Same Finite Source"

• FreshWater Catalogue gains momentum, 2019/06/06

• Citizen scientists needed for freshwater catalogue, 2018/05/02

Our developing a FreshWater Catalogue story periodically appears in Transition Salt Spring news items and and a 2023 province-level FWC piece on the effectiveness of (and need for) freshwater community science and stewardship is awaiting province publication (202305)!

FWC Data Sharing

Our FWC field and well data is accessible to view as "public domain" FWC datasets, and is available for study in raw or processed form. The data is periodically shared with the Canadian watershed stewardship group - Water Rangers, for use in their Canada-wide educational work and (their recent) WWF-Canada water quality oriented studies.  Live FWC datasets, for download and interpretation, are now available via a Freshwater Pacific FWC Datastream (beta) site.

Selected FWC field data have been made available to the CRD for local SSI studies, and have been used in the 2020 FWC - Simon Fraser University (SFU) summer study (see above).  Our south island freshwater catalogue data was used by the CRD in the ongoing Weston Lake Water Budget study!  Next... is to ensure that the FWC data is used (integrated into developing island groundwater-surface water hydraulic connectivy models.

FWC Data Management and Analysis

With a growing field dataset, data management and guidelines on data interpretation are being developed to support data quality control, to improve data access and visualisation, and encourage the development of our HomeOffice stewardship-minded community of data analysts.

FWC summary highlights

Our FWC Volunteer Bulletins.

WPS Publications summary highlights

A series of Water Preservation Society (WPS) Publications and Newsletters are available from our FWC project host's Water Preservation Society (WPS) website.  Several of the WPS newsletters touch on  "The Interconnectedness of Things", making the link between the geology of the island and the island's water, Part-I "An Introduction to Our Island’s Freshwater (Re)sources" , "Part II Shallow Groundwater (Aquifers), - Where and what are these and how do they work?"

To receive regular copies of the WPS Newsletters, and more on what the society is up-to, please consider joining the WPS.