SSI FreshWater Catalogue - Ganges Creek (GGCK)

SSI, CENtral Watersheds

Ganges Creek (GGCK) Watershed "Notes"
- Ganges Area -

LAST UPDATE 2023/10/31

SSI Central Area - overview watersheds (colour coded, CRD, 2018) & watershed note area

Central Island, Ganges Creek Watershed

From our ongoing Central Island, Freshwater Cataloguing - notes on the Ganges Creek (GGCK) watershed area. Cf. the SSI FWC webmap for field locations and charted information (where available).

The content of these "Notes" entries is dependant on the information that is currently available, from FWC volunteer work, FWC reporting or from other sources. We need additional volunteers in this area.

Note - if you have additional insights into this area (the watershed, it's creeks or wetlands), can help with site(s) access, or are interested in being involved in data collection for this project area, please contact the SSIFWC Project Lead.

For now these notes draw heavily extracts from our monthly FWC "Which Creek Is It" Competition, from our Salt Spring Island FreshWater Catalogue Watershed Stewardship Group Facebook page, with "field note" addendums where additional information has become available. Additional volunteer resources will enable us to do more!

We have ongoing FWC data collection (started, 2021/10) from downstream sites in the Ganges Creek watershed, though it being a community hub (aka village/town) the area is a strong candidate area for a larger local volunteer stewardship effort... This stewardship effort, with analysis of watershed outflows, chemistry, and surface water and groundwater baseflow(?) discharges to the sea (potential contaminates - TDB), will help establish year-round flow variability and chemistry baseline data for this watersheds creek systems, investigating an important urban watershed discharging into the Ganges estuary. Definition of surface vs ground water flow components are a key part of any planned watershed/areal water budget or water balance work, with potential uses in validating areal groundwater recharge potential and water budget models, and informing the potential impact of local Ganges area developments on Ganges Creek(s), it's watershed, it's aquifers and on the adjacent estuary and coastal ecosystems...

General Watershed & FWC Creek(s) Information:

Ganges & Swanson creeks are located in the Central Island, Ganges Creek (GGCK, or the "2016") watershed. The creeks paths and drainage/catchment areas (and potentially water quality?) are heavily modified, and partly hidden by Ganges infrastructure and modifications to the natural systems. The upland areas of this watershed are more variable with some areas retaining more natural systems and supporting recharge for this core island area, others are a mix of urban and agricultural land.

Two watershed creek systems, (Ganges & Swanson creeks) combine to form a single creek feeding, and influencing, a single, primary Ganges Creek outfall within Ganges (Shiya'hwt) . These, together with a "Cypress Creek" outfall (from the adjacent 9192 watershed) support estuarine systems in the bay area. Swanson Creek was our August 2021 Which Creek Is It (WCIT) competition entry, at an idyllic, and easy to access (and monitor) creekside location in town (located within the United Church meadow). An upstream "example of Swanson Creek, in a heavily modified upstream watercourse area was our December 2022 WCIT entry. The primary Ganges Creek, close to it's sea outfall (adjacent to ArtSpring), was the subject of an earlier September 2019 WCIT competition entry. An August 2022 WCIT entry was located in the more natural, forested, Ganges Creek watershed uplands area associated with Aske Creek, a Swanson Creek tributary.

Local watershed area maps and creek images

Ganges (GGCK) Watershed

Ganges Creek sea-outfall is apparently* (see map) the only creek outfall from the GGCK watershed. The 9192 watershed immediately to the south has a coastal outfall into the harbour, very close to the southern harbour marina area.
Two creeks (Ganges and Swanson) form the main surface watershed drainage, Swanson is more significantly modified by development

*Another Ganges creek system spur, in the same coastal discharge area “just” does not seem to make it to the sea…?

The GGCK watershed is one of the medium-small watersheds on the island, some 258.2 hectares (638.0 acres) in size. The watershed upland areas are largely forest covered

The GGCK watershed receives something like 2,452,900,000 litres (647,988,000 gallons) of rainfall (or surface water) per annum, about a tenth of captured by the island’s largest watershed

A limited number of local springs in the GGCK watershed may contribute to year-round(?) Ganges Creek flow - TBD

 The GGCK watershed area has approximately 60 groundwater wells.

Historical & Other Watershed Insights:

Aspects of the history of the Ganges area, and of Swanson pond (and creek) are be available on the SSI Archive.

The Ganges Watershed creek systems (and those in adjacent southerly "9192" and northerly "2009", "8346" watersheds) are important ones providing recharge for core (urban) island Ganges Harbour South, and Ganges Harbour North sub-aquifer (or groundwater) regions. Historically there have been various school groups sampling/collecting freshwater date in the core, village watershed area. However, discussions with various parties suggest that this historic data is not available. A small, SSIWPA initiated summer 2017 programme collected wetted-width data at a site on Ganges Creek.

There are no known "other", active freshwater sampling programmes ongoing in this watershed area, so insights into how the various freshwater ecosystems within the area respond to the forested uplands, agricultural, urban and light industrial developments in the area are not available. Nor do we have insights into the impact of land use (eg paved area runoff) on groundwater recharge, or on freshwater quality in the larger watershed area.

Note - any local insights, or interested in contributing to the historical/other notes on our islands' watersheds, please contact the SSIFWC Project Lead.

FWC "Citizen Science" Watershed Notes - Reporting:

As at 2021/10 we had almost no FWC data from the Ganges Creek watershed area. The Phoenix Elementary School, FWC "Team Phoenix" have collected some data from the adjacent "9192" Watershed to the south adjacent to the southern marina (which also discharges into the estuary of Fulford Harbour). More focused FWC data collection for selected watershed sites started in 2021/10 and will be reported on here when sufficient data becomes available. In November 2023 Gulf Islands Secondary School (GISS) started a small field data collection project.

It is quite possible that the “major faults” within and along the south side if the Ganges Valley play a role in groundwater inflow into the various valley creeks (though there are no local springs recorded…) - this and other area insights TBD!

The GGCK watershed (urban area and uplands) is a strong candidate for gathering additional FWC field data, particularly as the creek systems from this (and the adjacent 9192) watershed are responsible for maintaining the health of the near short estuarine setting within the Ganges bay. As per the development of freshwater cataloguing date at other watershed outfall sites (see SSIFWC webmap for details). Ganges Watershed data collection would support improving (areal) groundwater budget/water balance estimates provide a sense of the health of this watershed (and aquifer) area (and in the adjacent marine systems). "A year-round hydrometric flow network at major surface water features near their outlet to the sea, particularly in areas of higher groundwater use and population where recharge estimates are more important... would support estimates of surface water run-off and groundwater recharge" (Golder, 2019).

FWC Images and Videos:

Ganges Creek watershed FWC field images. Note - all FreshWater Catalogue images & videos copywrite belongs with the WPS and the FWC. We are grateful for due acknowledgement of copywrite in any use or publication of these educational resources.

Other Local Area Resources:

Want to know more about this watershed area, have a look at these local area references:

Island Stream and Salmon Enhancement Association, 1998., Habitat Restoration and Salmon Enhancement Programme.
McCullough M., 2011., Anadromous Coastal Cutthroat Trout Habitat Reconnasiance. FLNRO.
Manley, D., & Stewardson, M., 2014., Salt Spring Island Riparian Areas Regulation Mapping Project. Mainstream Biological Consulting, sponsored by IT.
Gorski, N. G., and Sacre, J. P. (Golder), 2019., Aquifer Mapping and Monthly Groundwater Budget Analysis for Aquifers on Salt Spring Island. BC Water Science Series WSS2019-01, Province of British Columbia.

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