SSI FreshWater Catalogue - Soule Creek (SOCK)

SSI FreshWater Catalogue

SSI, SOUTH Watersheds

Soule Creek (SOCK) Watershed Note - W̱ENÁ¸NEĆ Tsawout (Fulford Bay)

- Mt Bruce flanks, Fulford Valley to sea, Fulford Harbour, north end -

LAST UPDATE 2022/01/16

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

South Island, Soule Creek Watershed

From our ongoing South Island, Freshwater Cataloguing - notes on the Soule Creek (SOCK) 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. Additional volunteer resources will enable us to do more!

The data collected from our FWC field work in the Soule Creek watershed gathers year-round flow and chemistry baseline data, investigating watershed surface water and groundwater baseflow(?) discharge to the sea - a key component to any planned watershed, or water budget, and input to validating groundwater recharge potential models, and with potential impact on local developments, Fulford Creek and estuary ecosystems...

General Watershed & FWC Creek(s) Information:

Soule Creek is located in the South Island, Soule Creek (SOCK, or the 2092) watershed. The creek is located on the south valley side creek joins (and runs close to) the Fulford Creek outfall/estuary, in the head of the Fulford Harbour. Soule Creek was our September 2020 Which Creek Is It competition entry.

SOUL watershed overview (LiDAR & satellite backdrops). Images show examples of Soule Creek, water abstraction and it's downstream creek outfall (on image R-L into Fulford Creek / Harbour estuary)

Soule Creek (SOCK) Watershed

Soule Creek at the sea outfall is one of several creeks supporting the SLCK watershed surface freshwater flow, with the watershed a mix of forest ecosystems and agricultural land. The WCIT images site is the single Soule watershed creek outflow and discharge to the sea. The watershed area drains from the south flanks of Hope Hill (625m)
The SLCK Creek watershed is moderate-small in size, some 142 hectares (351 acres) in size (around the size of the Old Lowther Creek, CENTRAL island; and Walkers Brook NORTH island watersheds)
The SLCK watershed receives something like 1,349,950,000 litres (356,619,000 gallons) of rainfall (precipitation, or surface water) per annum (water volumes are approximate with no consideration of surface/terrain conditions, nor rainfall variability within the catchment area)
By comparison with some of the island’s biggies(!) this is a small but (always) important potential rainfall catchment (and aquifer recharge) watershed area, with part of the watershed water flow likely supporting Fulford Creek (with surface and subsurface in-stream creek inflow, and/or via Soule Creek discharge in the Fulford Estuary
The watershed has a low number of subsurface (ca 10) wells. Though, anecdotally, for the Soule Creek watershed (and the remainder of the Fulford Valley), there is a significant amount of shallow water and surface creek abstraction
As per other areas around the island “shallow”, 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!

Note - abstractions from shallow wells and surface creeks are candidates for "casual" water intake (and ecosystems!) contamination by anthropogenic activities, and it has happened, so please look after our creeks!

Historical & Other Watershed Insights:

Anecdotal sources indicate the old Fulford Inn may have had water abstraction from Soule Creek for inn use. A BC Water Licence Search for "SSI" as a watershed reveals a number of "Soule" freshwater abstraction sites.

Note - any other 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 Reporting:

Soule Creek at its outfall is the amalgamation of several creeks in the SLCK watershed. As at 2022/01 we have close to three and a half years of FWC data from Soule Creek. The 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 field data graphing - examples illustrating developing watershed working models. For further site specific "dynamic" charting cf. the SSIFWC webmap

FWC findings to-date indicate that Soule was/is a permanent (groundwater fed) creek, with relatively healthy groundwater flow, even during the summer.

Soule 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 weak/tentative Soule Creek conductivity vs flow correlation (cf. other watershed note examples, eg Geralds Creek) (background reading under development) suggests a potential mechanism to calculate the seasonal variability in a groundwater baseload flow and total flow into the stream and at the sea-outfall.

For Soule 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 futher details).

Groundwater baseflow (and watershed discharge to sea) are important components of an area freshwater budget determination, and support groundwater recharge/discharge modelling.

Potential groundwater inflows (“base flow”) within the SOCK watershed (2109) at Soule Creek are from hardrocks - volcanic metasediments of the Sikker Group, and/or sedimentary rocks - Haslam Formation shales. It is quite possible that the “major faults” within and along the south side if the Fulford Valley play a role in groundwater inflow into Soule Creek (there are no local springs recorded…, though some odd creek "startup points" may align along the fault lines…).

From the 052109 GW Consultants report the SLCK watershed area has a “high”, topographic wetness, though oddly aquifer recharge potential for the area is currently considered “lower”, which does not quite jive with the creeks and general feel of the area with the nearby "water towers" but is perhaps linked to broad(ish) agricultural land use…. Further ground truthing is required?

The SLCK 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 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, potential anthropogenic over prints, and may impact local water resource availability...

FWC Field Data:

Raw and processed FWC field data is available for this watershed. For further details please refer to Data Downloads from the SSIFWC "Data Access" webpage, to review the data available for download please use the SSIFWC webmap.FWC Images and Videos:

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

Other Local Area Resources:

Manley, D., & Stewardson, M., 2014., Salt Spring Island Riparian Areas Regulation Mapping Project. Mainstream Biological Consulting, sponsored by IT.

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