Overview of canadian watershed monitoring programs for improved water quality

Abstract

Pollution from intensive agricultural production is a major contributor to water quality degradation in Canada. Activities such as forestry and hydroelectric development in rural areas also endanger water quality. The need to develop good management practices to reduce such contamination has led to the initiation of numerous watershed water quality and modeling studies. Great Lakes basin water quality studies in the 1970s formed a technical and methodological basis for future watershed studies in Canada. More recently, implementation of various governmental programs such as the Canada Green Plan has promoted an integrated ecosystems approach that achieves water quality improvement by focusing on socio-economic aspects of basin water resources management. Some of the significant watershed studies initiated in recent years in Canada are discussed in the present paper. © 1998 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.