Spring Creek Representative and Experimental Watershed Project

Abstract

The Spring Creek Representative and Experimental Watershed Project was initiated in 1965 to understand the effects of land-use conversion from boreal forest to agricultural land on mid-size watersheds typical to northern Alberta. The initial project was deactivated in 1986 and the treatment was never completed. In 1991, Daishowa-Marubeni International Ltd. and the Alberta Department of Environmental Protection restarted the project with new objectives to determine the hydrologic effects of aspen harvesting and the hydrologic recovery of water yield post-harvest. The impacts of basin morphology and forest harvesting on water quality were also investigated. The objectives of this manuscript are to summarize the novel results and data collected for this project.