About Ottawa
Riverkeeper
What is a
Watershed?
What does a healthy
watershed look like?
Presenting
Sponsor
About Ottawa
Riverkeeper
Ottawa Riverkeeper, a charitable organisation, is a champion and collective voice for the Ottawa River watershed, providing leadership and inspiration to protect, promote and improve its ecological health and future.
Guided by a science-based approach, we provide clear information with the aim to engage the public and empower citizens and decision-makers, and inspire cooperative action focused toward ensuring clean, healthy, and accessible water for all people and species.
Learn more at ottawariverkeeper.ca!
What is a
Watershed?
A watershed, also known as a catchment or drainage basin, is simply all of the land and waterways that drain towards a single location. Here is another way to think about it: imagine a bathtub. As you add water to the bathtub, no matter where it falls within the bathtub it will eventually flow towards the drain. In a watershed, if water is poured onto the land (such as rainfall), it will eventually flow into a certain body of water (either directly, or via smaller tributaries). That area of land is then part of that body of water’s watershed.
Every body of water has a watershed, and can in turn be part of another watershed. For example, the area of land that drains into the Gatineau River makes up the Gatineau River watershed. The Gatineau River drains into the Ottawa River though, so all that land is also part of the Ottawa River watershed. The Gatineau River watershed is therefore considered a sub-watershed of the Ottawa River watershed. The Ottawa River watershed contains several large subwatersheds, and in turn is itself a subwatershed of the St Lawrence River watershed.
A watershed can have many different types of land cover. Forests, wetlands, waterbodies, cities, towns and other developed areas, and agricultural lands are all examples of land cover. The land cover present in a watershed can have an impact on the rivers within it by changing how quickly rainfall moves over the land. Plus, if there are pollutants, nutrients, or sediment, these might be transported to local streams and impact the river’s water quality. Everything within a watershed is connected; what happens in one area can have big impacts on the others.
What does a healthy
watershed look like?
A healthy watershed is one where humans and nature live in balance. That means native species thrive, and their habitat remains intact, even alongside human habitation.
There are many interconnected factors that influence the ecological health of a river and its watershed. For example, for every watershed there will be normal, healthy ranges of water temperatures, flow volumes and rates, nutrient concentrations, as well as populations of native species. If conditions shift outside of their healthy ranges, or if there is pollution or the introduction of new species, that balance can be disrupted and change the health of the watershed. However, in a system as large and complex as the Ottawa River watershed, there is so much natural variation geographically, temporally, and seasonally, that determining whether the watershed as a whole is healthy or not is a difficult puzzle to solve. If there is pollution in the lower half of the river, but the areas upstream are still clean, is the whole watershed unhealthy? Does the presence of an invasive species in one area change the entire watershed as a whole? The answers to these questions, unfortunately, are not straightforward, but if we can detect and address issues quickly, we can protect other areas. By doing this, we can improve the overall health of the watershed.
This is why Ottawa Riverkeeper is working on a Watershed Health Assessment and Monitoring project. By working with experts, academic researchers, Algonquin communities, and volunteer citizen scientists, this ongoing project aims to collect and analyse data, and share what we learn with you as well as decision-makers. The data collection is focused on 14 indicators of aquatic ecosystem health, and collected throughout the watershed. By working together with lots of different groups and people, and by creating accessible educational tools like this discovery portal, we hope to inspire and empower citizens of the watershed to learn more about the health of the watershed and take actions to protect the incredible Ottawa River.
Presenting
Sponsor
Ottawa Riverkeeper’s Discovery Portal is presented by RBC.
Ottawa Riverkeeper would like to thank the generous support of RBC for making the Discovery Portal possible.
Additional funding for the Watershed Health Assessment and Monitoring initiative comes from:
Visit our website for more information about our partners and funding.
Ottawa RIVERKEEPER’s
Discovery Portal
Welcome to Ottawa Riverkeeper’s Discovery Portal!
Ottawa Riverkeeper acknowledges and honours that the Ottawa River watershed is located on the unceded territories of the Anishinābeg Algonquin Nation, whose people are the traditional and ongoing stewards of these lands and waters.
Ottawa Riverkeeper gets hundreds of questions from people throughout the watershed concerned about watershed health issues. This portal dives into the 7 most common questions. Many of these answers have been informed by the Watershed Health Assessment and Monitoring initiative. Through data collection and analysis, this project’s purpose is to help us to better understand the health of the Ottawa River, as well as its tributaries and drainage basin.
This Discovery Portal is designed to be a tool where you can explore the best answers we have found to the questions you’re asking. Like you, we recognise that our rivers are impacted by many different factors, and we want to understand what that means for the species that rely on them (including us as humans).
Presented by:
Watershed Health
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The Questions
With increased urbanization, industry, and development, how has the watershed changed?
Natural land cover such as forests, meadows, and wetlands play important roles in the ecology of our watershed. Rain and stormwater move more slowly across these types of land, allowing the water to be soaked up into the ground and taken up by plants. Urbanisation, such as building towns or expanding cities, replaces natural surfaces with more solid and impermeable ones. This results in rain and stormwater moving over the ground more quickly and ending up in sewer systems or entering waterways as runoff. This means that more pollutants like road salt end up in our streams, and can increase the size and frequency of combined sewer overflows (CSOs).
CSO Land Use Riparian Connectivity Water MercuryWhat effect does agriculture have on the watershed?
One of the biggest impacts that agriculture has on our rivers, and their aquatic environment, comes in the form of runoff. Pesticides sprayed on crops, as well as waste produced by livestock can be harmful to the species that live in our rivers. Additionally, fertiliser from crops draining off into waterways can increase the amount of nutrients in the water so much that it can actually become harmful! Too much of a nutrient like phosphorus or nitrogen can cause an imbalance in aquatic ecosystems that can affect many species.
Chlorophyll-a Riparian Connectivity Total PhosphorusWill climate change impact the Ottawa River watershed?
The obvious impact of climate change is a gradual increase in water temperatures. But there are other threats that freshwater species will have to face. Probably more dangerous will be changes to seasonal cycles, such as when it will rain, or when the rivers freeze and melt. These changes could become more and more dramatic and unpredictable, and will likely be a much bigger problem for our freshwater ecosystems.
Flow Ice On-Off Water TemperatureAre native fish populations thriving in the Ottawa River watershed?
There are over 85 different species of fish that call the Ottawa River watershed home! However, many of these species have smaller populations, or are disappearing completely from areas where they used to be found in great numbers. Habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, not being able to get to important spawning grounds, changes in important food sources, and other alterations in ecological conditions are some of the reasons why some native fish populations may be struggling.
Benthic Invertebrates Dissolved Oxygen Fish RichnessAre invasive species present in the Ottawa River watershed?
Invasive species are species that are not originally from our watershed and in the last 50 years, the number of invasive species in the Ottawa River watershed has shot up. Invasive species can cause a lot of problems for native species. Sometimes this is because they become predators, or take food away from native species. However they can also change the way the ecosystem works, making it harder for native species to survive. It’s important to note that most invasive species were introduced through human activity. We need to do our part to make sure that the number of invasive species, and the locations they are found, do not continue to increase.
Fish Richness Invasive Species Riparian ConnectivityHow can we determine if it is safe to swim, surf and paddle in the watershed?
In the Ottawa River watershed, there’s a water-related activity for everyone! But whether you’re conquering rapids in your kayak or mastering the art of a lazy beach day, it is important to recognize when it is or isn’t safe to do your chosen activity. Making sure you have all the proper safety equipment is important, but checking water quality is another crucial step in making sure you protect yourself and your friends and family while taking part in any activity where you come in direct contact with the water.
Algal Blooms CSOWhere does my drinking water come from?
The Ottawa River provides many people who live in communities along its shores with their drinking water. That’s almost 2 million people relying on the river to drink! However, it is not the only source of drinking water in the watershed. There are also many protected lakes that serve as a drinking water source for municipalities that are not next to a large river system. Drinking water is also available from groundwater, and in many smaller municipalities, households get their drinking water from wells. So while the rivers, lakes and groundwater all provide a great source of drinking water in the watershed, not all communities have the infrastructure to support access to safe, reliable drinking water.
Algal Blooms Land UseDid you know that… ?
Algae is a primary source of food for many animals in a food web, from the smallest creatures to large fish. The amount, or biomass, of algae present in an aquatic ecosystem is therefore an important indicator of overall food quantity and quality in an ecosystem and can be estimated in the laboratory by measuring the amount of chlorophyll-a (green pigment involved in photosynthesis) in the water.
Did you know that… ?
Although aquatic organisms don’t breathe air the way we do, many of them do rely on dissolved oxygen for conducting respiration underwater. When oxygen concentrations in the water become too low, fish and other aquatic organisms struggle to survive.
