Data collection key to preserving freshwater

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/03/2022 (1541 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I HAVE to admit, my heart sank as my eyes caught the headline “Latest Manitoba modelling contains limited wastewater data” (Free Press, Feb. 14).

“Limited water data” is a somewhat ubiquitous expression that continues to plague those who work in the field of freshwater science. It’s a polite and opaque way of saying “we really don’t have nearly enough data to build an accurate and complete picture of the health of our fresh water — nor to plan for the future.”

All the more galling, given that it was published during Love Data Week.

While that article ultimately revealed that what was limited was the amount of wastewater surveillance data released by the province to help model the trajectory of COVID-19, that phrase remained somewhat triggering for me — especially since I had learned earlier that day that pharmaceutical pollution has wreaked incredible havoc on the world’s rivers.

Despite proudly touting here in Canada that our fresh water (20 per cent of the world’s supplies) is our most importance resource, the freshwater data landscape is sparse and patchy. So much so, in fact, that just over a year ago, WWF-Canada revealed it couldn’t even determine the health of 60 per cent of Canada’s watersheds, citing lack of data.

I know data is not a particularly sexy topic; in fact, it’s a pretty nerdy and cumbersome one. But it really is the building block of the scientific processes that keep us and our environment safe.

Without reliable, consistent and accurate data on the health of Canada’s freshwater environments, we don’t know how healthy and safe those freshwater supplies are, nor can we completely understand the impacts humans are having on them.

The aforementioned study on pharmaceutical pollution and rivers could not have drawn its (admittedly dispiriting) conclusions without access to vast swaths of accurate data from across the globe.

And when it comes to monitoring Canada’s freshwater supplies regularly in order to obtain that data, COVID-19 certainly hasn’t helped. So, what is the solution? Well, as always, we need to innovate how we do things.

When it comes to scientists monitoring freshwater systems, there are some incredible new innovations on the horizon — many of which are right here in Canada.

Citizen science, or community-based water monitoring (CbWM) — empowering plucky citizens across given regions to grab their knapsacks and go out and take samples of their surrounding bodies of water to be submitted to larger datastreams across the country — has boomed during the pandemic.

And that’s a critical part of our freshwater monitoring infrastructure in Canada — a land of often remote and scattered freshwater bodies that are impractical for our limited cadre of scientists to reach.

And we need to maintain this momentum for community-based water monitoring through federal and provincial investments to ensure they’re viable options to complete our freshwater data puzzle here in Canada.

This includes investment in existing CbWM organizations dotted around the country so they can empower (and fund) local communities to monitor their local water bodies; share the results in accessible formats across communities, cities and provinces; and make informed decisions to effect real improvements to the health of those water bodies.

When it comes to scientists monitoring freshwater systems, there are some incredible new innovations on the horizon — many of which are right here in Canada.

For example, researchers at the IISD Experimental Lakes Area, just outside Kenora, are monitoring one of their lakes for everything from temperature to chlorophyll from the comfort of their own home office. This is thanks to a rather funky Canadian invention: a solar-powered floating platform that tests the water for given parameters, processes the information and then transmits that right to an office in Winnipeg (or London, Tokyo or Sydney, for that matter) to be understood and acted upon.

As the pandemic has taught us, data about health — whether human or environmental — is the only way we can understand current trends and make the best decisions about how to improve them.

Canada’s most precious resource, fresh water, is no exception, but we need to invest in its monitoring — for us, and for future generations.

Matthew McCandless is executive director of the IISD Experimental Lakes Area.