Sturgeon River Watershed Aquatic Ecosystem Assessment

The North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance (NSWA) is responsible for making watershed management recommendations to local watershed partners and the Government of Alberta. The Sturgeon River (SR) is one of the 12 sub-watersheds within the larger North Saskatchewan River (NSR) watershed. Although the SR watershed covers a relatively large portion of the NSR watershed, comprehensive information regarding the aquatic ecosystem is not available. Thus, the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance (NSWA) commissioned CPP Environmental to conduct this survey to create a baseline and status regarding the aquatic ecosystems along the SR. The scope of this project included multiple ecosystem components, including water quality, physical habitat, macroinvertebrate community, and fish community. The purpose of measuring all of these components is to obtain a comprehensive view of the SR aquatic ecosystems, which each are communities of living organisms and their physical and chemical environment. The Sturgeon River (SR) was surveyed at twelve sampling stations distributed throughout the length of the river, as well as the main tributaries. At each sampling station on the SR, physical habitat, water quality, vegetation, fish, and macroinvertebrate surveys took place. In the tributaries, only water quality was measured. Water quality variables analyzed included nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen), dissolved oxygen, suspended solids, pesticides, metals, and salts.