Flooding and droughts are two events that occur during extreme weather conditions.
The number of extremely hot days, frequency of warm spells and intensity of rainfall events are projected to increase in the regional district, and also across the province.
These events cause changes in streamflow, affect fish habitat, spark more frequent wildfires, and result in more extreme weather events like flooding or landslides.
To track water resources in a changing climate, the Regional District of Nanaimo’s Drinking Water and Watershed Protection program has established important monitoring partnerships and increased the “eyes on the water” to better understand trends, improve preparedness for response to extreme events and adapt to changing conditions.
Precipitation and temperature, water level and flows are just some of the things that are being monitored. This information is valuable to many partners and ultimately benefits the region as a whole, according to an RDN press release. Monitoring data will help understand changes over time and how water supplies are being affected so that management of community water, forest fire risk and fish habitat can adapt accordingly, with the many partners involved from senior government, community groups, industry and beyond.
Two new water monitoring locations were added to the regional network recently: Climate Station in the upper Nanoose Creek watershed — in partnership with Island Timberlands; and Streamflow Station in French Creek — in partnership with Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Forests Lands Natural Resources and Rural Development, and RDN Parks.
This adds to the network of nearly 100 monitoring stations — including groundwater, surface water quality, streamflow, snow and lake level sites — that the RDN DWWP program has initiated since 2011.
In the RDN press release, it stated that understanding local water dynamics in a changing climate is important to the resilience of our communities, ecosystems and industries. The RDN said it is a leader in British Columbia in terms of water monitoring, thanks to the Drinking Water and Watershed Protection function that co-ordinates initiatives on water science, water education and water planning across the region.
Visit rdn.bc.ca/hydrometric-and-climate-monitoring to learn about this DWWP project area and other ongoing water resource monitoring taking place in the region.
— NEW Staff/RDN Report