Dr. Jeannette Armstrong, OC, Ph.D., speaks about her research on the recognition of Syilx Governance Rights in the watershed.

Thank you to UBC’s team in the Community Engagement office and Rheanne Kroschinsky for writing and sharing the following article about the Peachland Watershed Community Engagement workshop held in November 2023:

Peachland and the Watershed Ecosystems Project Work Together to Promote Collaborative Watershed Science and Governance

The workshop was supported by the Partnership Recognition and Exploration (PRE) Fund. We are grateful to the Community Engagement office for assistance in facilitating this important aspect of our community engaged research.

The Community Engagement office provides support, services and strategic direction for local community groups, organizations and individuals so they can access resources and engage in mutually beneficial relationships with UBC.

Corrie Allen speaks about her research at the Peachland Community Engagement Workshop.

This past June, Emmi Matern represented the Watershed Ecosystems Project and UBC Okanagan at the Canadian Water Resources Association 2024 National Conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The conference, titled “Bridging water research and practice: Mobilizing our collective knowledge”, was primarily attended by representatives from government and industry, and the various academic contributions at the conference were well-received as a bridge between research and applied practice. This theme is receiving attention across Canada, from stormwater research and management in PEI to flood prediction in the Southern Lakes region of the Yukon, to the work being done by the Watershed Ecosystem Project team in the Okanagan.

Emmi presented a poster related to one of her research outcomes, and attended a Q&A period about her poster and its context in watershed management.

Emmi’s presentation, titled “Fragility and societal vulnerability in watersheds: Managing for resilience and risk reduction of linked hydrologic hazards”, presented a new recommendation for decision-makers: Hazards should be viewed as linked processes, not as independent phenomena, and it should be acknowledged that multiple risks can and do occur at the same time. By taking this approach and assessing hazards and risks in an integrated fashion, maladaptive outcomes can be identified and mitigated.

This particular research topic is indirectly related to Emmi’s work on risk-based watershed assessment for her doctoral program. Emmi emphasized the relationships between fragility, vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and resilience in order to provide context for watershed decision-makers that typically only consider a single hazard and risk at a time. For many water management practitioners in attendance, this presentation likely served as an introduction to the relatively new concept of ‘maladaptive strategies’, which has not yet bridged the gap between research and practice.

Emmi Matern, PhD Student, UBC Okanagan presenting at the Canadian Water Resource Association 2024 Annual Conference June, 2024.

CWRA 2024 poster 

In addition to the conference, Emmi attended a tour that showcased key irrigation infrastructure for the South Saskatchewan River Basin. The tour included stops at Gardiner Dam, the Lake Diefenbaker spillway, the Eastside and Westside pump stations, and two local businesses that are part of the irrigation network: Spring Creek Garden and Black Fox Farm and Distillery.

For more information on Emmi’s research, please visit: Urban Water.

Article written by Emmi Moore.

Mackenzie Myers presented a poster titled, “Investigating Timber Harvest Controls on Flowpaths in the Peachland Creek Watershed”, at the Graduates of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences (GEESC) Research Symposium held at UBC Okanagan in April 2024.

Freshwater resources in British Columbia’s forested catchments are under increasing strain due to forest disturbance, including timber harvest. Understanding the impact of timber harvesting on watershed hydrology can inform land use planning to better control peak and low flow events, mitigate erosion and habitat loss, as well as preserve freshwater resources.

Towards this, flowpaths and transit times are hydrological processes that offer insight on ecological and resource sustainability risks following forest disturbance. Previous studies have inferred flowpath and transit time changes from streamwater chemical measurements, but there is a lack of research regarding threshold disturbance levels for significant hydrological changes at the watershed sub-basin level.

 Mackenzie Myers, MSc Student, Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, presenting a research poster at the 2024 GEESC Research Symposium held in April 2024 at UBC Okanagan.

This study, which takes place in the Peachland Creek Watershed in B.C., explores the impacts of various intensities of timber harvest on streamwater flowpaths and transit times.

Streamwater and precipitation chemical data, as well as stable water isotopic data is being collected over a two-year fieldwork period. The sampling process focuses on a range of sub-basins of similar geography and size, with various intensities of timber harvest. Extracted data is applied towards multivariate analysis with the goal of detecting key relationships between timber harvest and chemistry-inferred hydrological process differences.

Research goals include a comprehensive understanding of flowpaths and transit times in selected sub-basins, as well as the determination of factors underpinning relationships of timber harvest and hydrological process changes, and their significance for the sustainability of freshwater resources and ecological health. 

Research results aim to provide watershed-specific disturbance thresholds for significant hydrological process changes in sub-basins. Results may also be applied to broader holistic models and further forest disturbance research in the region. Findings from this research may guide informed land-use planning for watershed management at the municipal and provincial scale.

Article written by Marni Turek (based on the abstract for the poster presentation).

Future of Our Forests:  Preserving BC’s Primary Forests Today to Protect Water and Wildlife Tomorrow

The Interior Watershed Task Force (IWTF) is hosting “Future of Our Forests:  Preserving BC’s Primary Forests Today to Protect Water and Wildlife Tomorrow”, on April 13, 1-5:30 in Kelowna.

Dr. John Wagner will be providing closing remarks.

You can attend in person or virtually via a live Zoom link.  Seating and spots are limited.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. 

To attend in person register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/future-of-our-forests-tickets-865717864437

To attend the live Zoom register here: 
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kdumrqj4oHNKR1NrJTACilsXBQpzLsu17

Additional Information

Press Release IWTF Town Hall Apr 13-24 final

IWTF TOWN HALL Programme final Apr 13-24

Hydroclimatic controls and the influence of climate change on the timing of the kokanee spawning period in Peachland, BC

Congratulations to Emily Moore for successfully defending her thesis, “Hydroclimatic controls and the influence of climate change on the timing of the kokanee spawning period in Peachland, BC” in January 2024.

Please see her full thesis here.  

Tour Summary

On June 16, 2023, the Watershed Ecosystems Project team was joined by an extensive group of water researchers, local and provincial government representatives, Syilx community members, District community members, and source water users on an informative field tour of the sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek) watershed hosted by local watershed advocacy group, the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance (PWPA).   

The tour served a variety of purposes for the Watershed Ecosystem Project’s research in the sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek) watershed including the facilitation of knowledge exchange, partnership building, and the development of individual relationships with the physical watershed.

Many members of the watershed community were present, shared their perspectives, and engaged in poignant conversations regarding current ecological health and frameworks of governance. Syilx elders, researchers, and community members were present, grounding the tour within the understanding of unrelinquished Syilx rights and title to the watershed area, and the important role of Syilx water sciences, laws, and cultural relationships in Watershed Ecosystems Project research.  

This tour illustrated increasing cumulative pressures amid a changing climate, highlighting the importance of interdisciplinary, whole-of-watershed approaches to support more robust understandings of interior watersheds.

Thank You!

The Watershed Ecosystems Project team is very grateful to have had this opportunity to learn from the community. Special thanks to the Syilx hosts for welcoming our group into the territory, the speakers, and to the PWPA for facilitating this well-organized and successful event. We look forward to continued collaborations and partnerships into the future.

Tour Photos

We are pleased to announce we are hosting an engagement workshop to share information on the Watershed Ecosystems Project with the community. The workshop is free and open to any community members who wish to engage with our Watershed Ecosystems Project researchers to learn more about our research activities, and will be an opportunity for the public to provide input and ask questions.

A special thank you to the District of Peachland for co-facilitating this event and providing a venue, and to the Partnership Recognition and Support Fund at UBC for providing funding.

Watershed Ecosystems Project Community Engagement Workshop

Registration (Free)

Please note that this event is free but registration is required.

We kindly request that interested participants register in advance on Eventbrite at: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/watershed-ecosystems-projectpeachlandcommunity-engagement-workshop-tickets-679539199037

Workshop Overview

UBC Okanagan’s Watershed Ecosystems Project represents an interdisciplinary approach to watershed science and governance research focused on the sqʷʔa (Peachland Creek) community watershed.

Centered around information sharing and relationship building, this workshop will serve as an opportunity for meaningful discussion around the ecological facets and governance frameworks of this watershed.

Agenda

*Coffee and snacks will be available for an additional 30 minutes following closing remarks for those who wish to stay and continue the discussion.

For More Information

If you have any questions regarding this workshop, please reach out to Marni Turek, Watershed Extension Facilitator, at Marni.Turek@ubc.ca.

We are pleased to share the article below that describes how graduate students Dawn Machin and Sarah Alexis are incorporating traditional Indigenous knowledge into their research about our relationship with siwɬkʷ (Water). You will also hear from Dr. Jeannette Armstrong about the importance of siwɬkʷ from a Syilx perspective in a short video embedded in the article.

You can read the article here:

An Indigenous Approach to Understanding Water

For more information on research being conducted by Dr. Armstrong and Dawn Machin as part of the Watershed Ecosystems team, please visit: Syilx Knowledge.

The Watershed Ecosystems Project team extends sincere congratulations to fellow member, lax̌lax̌tkʷ Dr. Jeannette Armstrong as she is honoured with the appointment of Officer of the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian literature and leadership in revitalizing the Syilx Okanagan Indigenous language.

Dr. Armstrong is a Canada Research Chair in Okanagan Indigenous Knowledge and Philosophy. Her work in assessing the impacts of cumulative anthropogenic effects, and other stressors on Indigenous Okanagan Syilx values in the sqw?a (Peachland Creek) watershed constitutes a central pillar of the Watershed Ecosystems Project research initiative. Through her work, the team is building relationships and establishing a vision for the watershed with Syilx knowledge and value systems as active elements toward better governance.

For More Information

https://www.gg.ca/en/order-canada-appointees-june-2023

https://globalnews.ca/news/9816492/penticton-indian-band-member-appointed-order-of-canada/

This past May, a team of three Watershed Ecosystems Project researchers including Dr. Sheena Spencer and graduate students Jinyu Hui and Emily Moore, attended the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Geophysical Union in Banff, Alberta, where both Hui and Moore presented their research relating to Peachland Creek and the Watershed Ecosystems Project.

The Canadian Geophysical Union, with over 400 members and five distinct Sections (Hydrology, Geodesy, Solid Earth, Biogeosciences, and Earth Surface Processes) functions as a national organization for geophysical scientists, offering annual meetings, award programs, exposure to funding opportunities, and advocacy in policymaking. (Canadian Geophysical Union. 2023. https://cgu-ugc.ca/ Accessed June 2, 2023.)

The theme for this year’s meeting was “Advancing Knowledge in Earth and Environmental Science”. Within the “Advances in Forest Hydrology” session, Hui’s presentation, entitled “The relative roles of climate and forest in peak flows in snow-dominated watersheds of British Columbia”, centered in a quantification of the contributions of climate variability and forest disturbance to changes in peak flows at the watershed scale. Hui outlined how her combined approach which includes paired watershed experiments determining the absolute impact of forest disturbance on peak flows, the employ of statistical and machine learning methods to establish the relationship between climate variability and peak flows, and the separation of their relative contributions, suggest that climate variability plays a more important role in extreme peak-flow events, and  intensive forest disturbances have the ability to increase the magnitude and advancement of the timing of peak flows in snow-dominated watersheds. 

Within the “CSAFM (Canadian Society of Agriculture and Forestry Meteorology)” session, Moore’s presentation, entitled “Hydroclimatic and environmental effects on the run timing of kokanee salmon in Peachland Creek, British Columbia”, provided a context of water scarcity and climate change in the Okanagan Valley, as well as the economic and cultural importance of kokanee to the region as driving factors for her research.  Moore outlined the objective of her project as the identification of relationships between hydroclimatic factors (such as precipitation, air temperature, and stream flow) and the timing of the kokanee spawning period with the goal of better understanding the conditions required for an ideal spawning run and the prevention of detrimental advancement of the spawning period, which places salmon at risk of exposure to high water temperatures. 

Dr. Spencer, Hui and Moore reflected upon many learnings from the conference experience, most prominent being a reminder of the immense value of sharing and discussion amongst researchers in collaborative settings, where contagious enthusiasm emerges as groups of innovative and dedicated people gather to connect, learn, and strategize around complex problems.

 Emily Moore, MSc Student, Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, UBC Okanagan presenting at the Canadian Geophysical Union Annual Conference May, 2023.

Jinyu Hui, PhD Student, Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, UBC Okanagan presenting at the Canadian Geophysical Union Annual Conference, May 2023. 

Article written by Rheanne Kroschinsky, with contributions from Jinyu Hui, Emily Moore and Sheena Spencer.