Groundwater projects to inform communities, protect water and ecosystems

This fall, a new groundwater monitoring project will begin analyzing wells and aquifers in Alberta's Oldman Watershed. (Pexels/Pixabay)

Living Lakes Canada, a non-governmental organization dedicated to freshwater protection, announced a new Alberta-based groundwater monitoring project being piloted in the Oldman Watershed and starting up this fall.

The goal of the Alberta Groundwater Program, announced last month, is to gather valuable data and support drought resiliency.

Maggie Finkle-Aucoin, Living Lakes Canada’s database manager, spoke in a July 25 webinar about the significance of this new program.

“Careful management and allocation of groundwater is becoming increasingly important as populations continue to grow, as we see demand increase and pressures such as climate change intensify,” she said.

“When it comes to fresh water and especially groundwater, the expression ‘You can’t manage what you don’t measure’ is really relevant.”

The primary focus of the work will be tracking groundwater levels to better understand the future of the resource and using the information to openly involve and inform communities and policy makers.

“Directly providing relevant groundwater data to communities can inform watershed management, responsible use and new policies ensuring access to clean and sufficient water for communities and ecosystems,” Finkle-Aucoin said.

To promote groundwater knowledge and literacy, Living Lakes seeks to involve communities through employment, community engagement strategies, data sharing and student labs.

“The overarching goal is to openly and publicly share the collected data to support sustainable water-management practices,” Finkle-Aucoin said.

Alberta has recently been hit with severely low water levels, with many small communities encountering drought and water supply challenges.

According to Cathy Ryan, a University of Calgary earth energy and environment professor, a third of Albertan communities are groundwater dependent and more than 90 per cent of rural Albertans rely on water wells.

“The more data we have and the more integrated the data, the better,” she said in the July 25 webinar. “I think it’s fair to say that we don’t really have a good idea.”

Alberta currently operates 306 water-monitoring wells, which is notably lower than British Columbia’s 516 and Manitoba’s 850.

“This highlights a gap in water-monitoring efforts, which underscores the urgent need for more comprehensive data collection to make informed decisions regarding groundwater management,” Finkle-Aucoin said.

With this new project, collaboration will enable more comprehensive monitoring of wells and aquifers, meaning bodies of rock or sentiment holding groundwater.

The first step will be to identify vulnerable aquifers in the Oldman watershed system, which will be done this fall to determine priority for monitoring. Sites will be decided based on consultation with Oldman Watershed Council, the Piikani Nation lands department and impacted communities.

Equipment installation and monitoring training will begin next summer.

One of the key strategies enlisted for this project is towed transient electromagnetics. This system induces an alternating electrical field to scan and measure the depths of the ground, with disturbances in the signal potentially indicating presence of water.

This technology will give insight into the subsurface geological environment of an aquifer by creating maps using sounding points.

Groundwater makes up 98 per cent of liquid freshwater on Earth, stored and released by aquifers, and is critical to communities and ecosystems alike.

To learn more about this project and its rollout visit livinglakescanada.ca/project/alberta-groundwater-program.