SSI, CENTRAL Watersheds
Stowell Creek (SWCK) Watershed "Note" - W̱ENÁ¸NEĆ (Fulford Bay)
- Fulford Harbour, north end, northside, Fulford Village -
LAST UPDATE 2023/12/01
Embedded Files
SSI Central Area - overview watersheds (colour coded, CRD, 2018) & watershed note area
Central Island, Stowell Creek Watershed
Central Island, Stowell Creek Watershed
From our ongoing South Island, Freshwater Cataloguing - notes on the Stowell Creek (SWCK) 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. A big thank you to our FWC volunteers for contributions 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. FreshWater Catalogue data collection in this watershed is currently on-hold. volunteer resources will enable us to re-establish a watershed field programme!
The data collected from our FWC field work in the Stowell Creek watershed has gathered year-round flow and chemistry baseline data, to investigate watershed freshwater flow and chemistry and surface water and groundwater baseflow discharge to the sea. Both of these are key components to any planned watershed, or area water budget, and provide valuable input to validating groundwater recharge potential and groundwater availability models - important in establishing potential watershed freshwater availability, for the local community and natural ecosystems...
General Watershed & FWC Creek(s) Information:
General Watershed & FWC Creek(s) Information:
Stowell Creek is located in the Central Island, Stowell Creek (SWCK, or the "2065") watershed, and is easily accessed, near the coast and at Morningside (in Fulford), along Beaver Point Road, and at the upland Stowell Creek - Cusheon Creek watershed boundary on Stewart Road.
The creek outfall is located on the north side of the Fulford Valley, just outside the head of Fulford Harbour. The "Stowell Creek outfall" (aka fish-ladder), located on Morningside, was our April, 2019 Which Creek Is It competition entry. The "Stowell Lake E1 inflow creek", located along the Beaver Point road side, close to Aloha Farm, was a July, 2019 Which Creek Is It competition entry and "Stowell Lk inflow W2" an October, 2023 Which Creek Is It.
The single fish-ladder and sea creek outfall location of Stowell Creek from the Stowell Creek (SWCK) Watershed, are very close to a similar single sea creek outfall (and natural waterfall) from Weston Lake draining the Weston Creek Watershed. Though the former Stowell Creek site was modified to allow potential* fish-migration upstream of the culverted creek at Morningside.
In its lower reach Stowell Creek forms a single sea outfall, from the creek and the Stowell Lake discharge (the outfall to the sea is a great freshwater discharge measuring location). There are a series of small upstream creek spurs feeding Stowell Lake itself
The Stowell Creek watershed is still moderately forested with natural ecosystems, localised agricultural land is largely associated with former wetlands around Stowell Lake
The local Stowell Creek watershed images are from a number of locations, both Stowell Lake creek inflow sites, the lake and from the fish-ladder area where the creek discharges to the sea
The SWCK Creek watershed is moderate-small in size, some 563 hectares (1391 acres) in size (smaller than the adjacent Weston Creek, CENTRAL island; and Bullock Lake NORTH island watersheds)
The SWCK watershed receives something like 534,755,000 litres (117,629,655 gallons) of rainfall (precipitation, or surface water) per annum. By comparison with some of the island’s biggies(!) this is a small but (always) important potential rainfall catchment (and aquifer recharge/groundwater region) watershed area
The watershed has freshwater abstraction from a moderate number of subsurface (ca 60) groundwater wells. Though, anecdotally, for the Stowell Creek watershed there may be an additional undetermined number of shallow water well and surface creek abstractions
As per other areas around the island “shallow” wells, and even stream abstractions do not always factor into area water resource (budget) numbers (nor maps)… though these are a key part of the water resource story!
The sea outfall for Stowell Creek is partly supplied by Stowell Lake, one of Salt Spring Islands "nine-lakes"
Stowell creek lake is not on the shortlist of SSI lakes with organised Water District water extraction, but does have local withdrawals from the Stowell lakeside community.
Have a look at our SSIFWC webMap for further details.
Historical & Other Watershed Insights:
Historical & Other Watershed Insights:
The fish ladder, located at the Stowell Creek outfall on Morningside, carries all Stowell Creek watershed, creek discharge, to the sea. The fish ladder was built in 1992, when major Fulford community road modifications were put in place for local traffic. A local resident indicates that (in thirty years) salmon have never been observed using the salmon ladder (cf McCullough M., 2011).
Stowell Lake water level monitoring is currently ongoing as part of a SSIWPA run surface freshwater lake monitoring project on selected SSI Lakes.
Some 14,500 years ago the area was below sea level, impacted by volcanic activity from Mount Mazama around 7,600 years ago… (Neil & Lacourse, 2019).
Note - any other local insights, or interested in contributing to the historical/other notes on our islands' watersheds, please contact the SSIFWC Project Lead. It is well worth visiting the Stowell Creek fish ladder site after heavy rain, it is impressive!
FWC "Citizen Science" & Other Watershed Notes - Reporting:
FWC "Citizen Science" & Other Watershed Notes - Reporting:
Stowell Creek at its outfall is the amalgamation of several creeks in the SLCK watershed. Stowell Lake is likley to act as a “blender” for the watersheds freshwater (in a similar way to as Weston Lake in the Weston Creek watershed). It is likely that the freshwater temperature at the Stowell Creek outfall closely follows surface air temperature, so that in summer the outflow is very warm (or non-existent...). Blending is considerd “likely” as we do not yet regularly collect chemistry measurements from this STCK watershed at the sea outfall (and the fishladder is unsafe to measure from!)
If we want to determine groundwater contributions to the Stowell lake, we will have to monitor the watershed creeks upstream of the lake to obtain freshwater signatures (and perhaps understand local aquifer recharge volumes). Local SSIFWC STCK watershed sampling is under review... interested? - please contact the SSIFWC project lead.
As at 2021/092 we have ca. one year of FWC data from the Stowell Creek E2 Stowell Lake inflow (now on pause), and a five year, visual, flow monitoring only dataset recorded at the Fish Ladder (cf crude Ladder Timelapse). The former dataset provides valuable insights into Stowell Lake recharge and an associated water budget for this lake resource. The E2 inflow creek shows the classic signs of in-stream groundwater (base flow) contributions through the year, including: year-round flow, an inverse relationship between water temperature and air temperature, conductivity vs flow relationships.
FWC findings to-date indicate that Stowell E2 was/is a permanent (groundwater fed) creek, with relatively healthy groundwater flow, even during the summer.
Stowell Creek data illustrates an inverse relationship between water temperature and air temperature (air warm water cool and vica versa), the result of groundwater temperature remaining relatively constant during the course of the year, while air temperature changes seasonally.
A strong Stowell Creek E2 Lake inflow conductivity vs flow correlation suggests a mechanism to calculate the seasonal variability in surface water and groundwater baseflow lake inflows (recharge) and potentially at the downstream Stowell Creek sea-outfall.
For Stowell Creek, and now for multiple other SSI creeks, we know that we have a technique for using freshwater chemistry to determine a (crude) groundwater (baseflow) component to the total streamflow (cf our SSIFWC - SFU study for further details).
Groundwater baseflow (and watershed discharge to sea) are important components of an area freshwater budget determination, and support groundwater recharge/discharge modelling.
The SWCK watershed is another good candidate for gathering field data for a “ground-truthed” groundwater recharge potential (watershed recharge efficiency) model for one of our island’s key watersheds. Local data collection gives improved insights into how this watershed (and related freshwater ecosystems) work, are impacted by seasonal (or climatic…) changes, and will help with an improved understanding of how surface water catchments in the island’s watersheds contribute to aquifer recharge and local water resource availability...
FWC Images and Videos:
FWC Images and Videos:
Stowell 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:
Other Local Area Resources:
Barnett et al., 1993., Salt Spring Island Water Allocation Plan
Hodge, W. S., 1995., Ground Water Conditions on Salt Spring Island (eg. section 8.5)
McCullough M., 2011., Anadromous Coastal Cutthroat Trout Habitat Reconnasiance. FLNRO.
Willmott, T. Lange, J, and Morgen, J., 2013., Salt Spring Island Riparian Area Regulation Stream Identification - Bullock, Fulford, Maxwell, Stowell and Weston Watersheds., Madrone Environmental Services Ltd.
Neil., K and Lacourse, T., 2019., Diatom responses to long-term climate and sea-level rise at a low-elevation lake in coastal BritishColumbia, Canada. Ecosphere, V 10.
Howe K., & Allen D., 2020., - Linkages between Stream Chemistry and Groundwater Chemistry, Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, SFU.
GW Consultants, 2022., Lake Weston Water Availability and Climate Change Assessment, on behalf of the CRD.
Salt Spring Archives, Place Names.
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