Summary of the 2022 International Institute for Sustainable Development Canadian Prairie Water Retention Monitoring and Modelling Workshop

This report summarizes a virtual workshop hosted by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) on June 23, 2022, focused on the monitoring and modelling of water retention projects in the Canadian Prairies. The event brought together 20 participants from government, academia, and industry to share research on the effectiveness of small dams, retention ponds, and wetlands in managing water quantity and nutrient loads, specifically phosphorus. The workshop highlighted the technical challenges of monitoring in cold climates, the use of new technologies like UV-Vis spectrometers, and the need for better business cases to encourage the adoption of natural infrastructure by agricultural producers.

• Small dams in the South Tobacco Creek Watershed, constructed between 1985 and 1995, successfully reduced peak flow and extended flow periods, though their ability to remove sediment and nutrients was inconsistent and depended on reservoir depth and the timing of runoff events.
• A study of a 0.79 ha retention pond (the 'LB' pond) from 2016 to 2019 showed significant reductions in water quantity (~65%), total dissolved phosphorus (~80%), total phosphorus (~78%), and total suspended solids (~82%).
• Research indicates that drained wetlands in the Prairies facilitate the export of total phosphorus (TP) downstream, whereas intact and restored wetlands retain it. For example, intact wetland basins near Rapid City showed an average TP retention of 3.28 kg/ha/year over two years, while restored basins in southwestern Ontario showed an average capacity of 11.7 kg/ha/year.
• The De Salaberry water retention site achieved a 40% to 50% reduction in peak discharge for 10 to 100-year 24-hour storm events and retained 237 kg of phosphorus in 2019 and 98 kg in 2020.
• UV-Vis spectrometers are being used at the Ste. Geneviève retention pond to provide high-frequency water quality data. While phosphorus does not respond directly to UV-Vis, it can be estimated using surrogate relationships with turbidity, colour, and total/dissolved organic carbon, though these are site- and season-dependent.
• IISD is developing a meta-analysis to determine an average treatment rate coefficient for cold climate prairie water retention. This approach aims to provide more accurate nutrient reduction estimates than simply transferring percent removal rates between sites, which can lead to gross overestimations of total phosphorus reduction.
• Agricultural producers show low interest in converting land for water retention, even marginal land, due to the difficulty of using large modern equipment around such sites and the perception that standing water reduces land value.
• Workshop participants identified critical needs for the field, including higher frequency and quality of water quality monitoring data, more reliable time-series analysis, and measurements of reactive nutrient forms and salinity.

APA

International Institute for Sustainable Development (2022). Summary of the 2022 International Institute for Sustainable Development Canadian Prairie Water Retention Monitoring and Modelling Workshop. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2022-11/canadian-prairie-water-retention-workshop.pdf

Chicago

International Institute for Sustainable Development. Summary of the 2022 International Institute for Sustainable Development Canadian Prairie Water Retention Monitoring and Modelling Workshop. 2022. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2022-11/canadian-prairie-water-retention-workshop.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=International Institute for Sustainable Development |title=Summary of the 2022 International Institute for Sustainable Development Canadian Prairie Water Retention Monitoring and Modelling Workshop |date=November 2022 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2022-11/canadian-prairie-water-retention-workshop.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{internationalinstituteforsustainabledevelopment2022summary, author = {{International Institute for Sustainable Development}}, title = {{Summary of the 2022 International Institute for Sustainable Development Canadian Prairie Water Retention Monitoring and Modelling Workshop}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2022}, month = nov, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2022-11/canadian-prairie-water-retention-workshop.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }