Lake Winnipeg Community-Based Monitoring Network

The Lake Winnipeg Community-Based Monitoring Network (LWCBMN), coordinated by the Lake Winnipeg Foundation (LWF), mobilizes volunteers and watershed partners to collect water samples across Manitoba to measure phosphorus concentration. Phosphorus is the nutrient responsible for blue-green algae blooms on Lake Winnipeg. Phosphorus comes from diverse sources across the watershed, including municipal wastewater and agricultural runoff.

Different sub-watersheds contribute different proportions of Lake Winnipeg’s total phosphorus load. With the help of a strong network of watershed partners and volunteers, this long-term monitoring program is identifying phosphorus hotspots – localized areas that contribute higher amounts of phosphorus to waterways than other areas. Targeting actions to reduce phosphorus loading in hotspots will reduce the amount of phosphorus entering Manitoba’s lakes and rivers and improve the health of Lake Winnipeg.

Snow melts, floods and heavy rainfall events are responsible for most of the phosphorus that is flushed from the land and carried into our waterways. LWCBMN samples frequently throughout the season, and particularly during the spring melt, to ensure we capture phosphorus runoff during these high-water events.

Most LWCBMN sampling is conducted at stations where water flow is continuously monitored by the Water Survey of Canada (WSC). By tracking flow online using the WSC’s provisional real-time data, the network can notify partners volunteers and across the watershed to ensure frequent sampling during peak flows.