Welcome to the Watersheds Canada Resource Library!
Here you will find a comprehensive collection of free educational resources dedicated to helping rural shoreline property owners, families, municipalities, lake groups, and educators protect their lakes and restore natural habitat. Explore guides, best practices, case studies, lesson plans, and tools to become a freshwater protector. All resources are freely shareable so please include them in a newsletter, on social media, or printed for a community booth!
Funding support thanks to Peterborough K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation, and S.M. Blair Family Foundation.
2021 Year-end Celebration Event
This webinar was originally recorded on January 19, 2022. Join our staff for this one-hour webinar to see all that was accomplished in 2021 for Canada's freshwater. We shared the amazing on-the-ground impacts youth, grassroots organizations, waterfront property owners, and individuals had for your lakes and rivers. The evening was finished with a time to ask questions and talk to our staff.
5 Webinars To Introduce You To Freshwater Management
Freshwater systems are vast and complex, but at the same time, so incredibly important for us and for wildlife. Gain a better understanding of these ecosystems with this blog post that highlights 5 webinars you can watch from our Freshwater Stewardship Community to boost your understanding of these areas and how they are managed by people in the know.
5 Webinars to Introduce You to Freshwater Fish Conservation
Fish conservation is an important objective not only for the species themselves, but for the entire freshwater ecosystems in which they're found. Fish make up important parts of the food chain, maintaining balance and stability in freshwater ecosystems. Read this blog post to learn of 5 webinars from our Freshwater Stewardship Community that will boost your knowledge of fish conservation.
Bank Swallows webinar with Heather Polowyk
This is a handout from our webinar, "Bank Swallows: Life history, threats, and ways you can help". Bank Swallows are aerial acrobats that eat insects while in flight. They are a group at risk, with Canada losing 59% of its aerial insectivore populations. Habitat loss, degradation, and climate change are major threats. There are ways to help, including joining the SwiftWatch program and taking action at home.
Biomonitoring is for everyone webinar with STREAM and Living Lakes Canada
This is a handout from our webinar, "Biomonitoring is for everyone: How project STREAM combines citizen science with DNA technology". Benthic macroinvertebrates are aquatic insects without a backbone that are used as biological indicators to assess the health of a waterbody. Biomonitoring is a method that combines citizen science with DNA technology to understand watershed health. The project STREAM uses DNA metabarcoding to identify taxa present in benthic macroinvertebrates.
Bridging Beauty and Conservation webinar with Acacia Frempong-Manso
This is a handout from our webinar, "Bridging Beauty and Conservation: Waterfront Property Owners' Perspectives on Riparian Zones". The Love Your Lake program is a shoreline assessment program founded by Watersheds Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Federation. A values survey was administered to explore how understanding relational values may support the program’s objective of promoting shoreline stewardship. The study found that the majority of participants demonstrated preservationist values, placing value on lower human interference with natural processes and preserving nature. The study concludes that understanding values is a useful tool for lake associations and stewardship groups.
Brown, green or silver in your tea affects your pee webinar with Sandra Klemet-Nguessan
This is a handout from our webinar, "Brown, Green, or Silver in Your Tea: A Fish and Mayfly Tale". The handout discusses the process of 'brownification' in streams and lakes, caused by dissolved organic matter. It also explores the impact of nutrients in aquatic ecosystems, particularly from animal excretion. Additionally, it touches on the effects of nanosilver particles on freshwater ecosystems and provides resources for further learning, including articles and videos from various institutions.
Can Ontarios Brook Trout Cope with Climate Change? Webinar with Erin Stewart
This is a handout from our webinar, "Can Ontario’s Brook Trout Cope with Climate Change?". Climate change is affecting Brook Trout populations in Ontario, with models predicting significant warming. Brook Trout will have varying abilities to cope with climate change based on their local conditions and habitat. Effective conservation and management require specific, evidence-based information on Brook Trout life stages and regions. The community can help by adopting sustainable practices and supporting environmental organizations.
Coastal Resilience webinar with Rosmarie Lohnes
This is a handout from our webinar, "Coastal Resilience: Navigating Storms and Winters through Property Assessment and Monitoring". Riparian and coastal zones are areas between the upland zone and the shoreline, providing distinct, rich, moist soils for diverse plant communities. Healthy riparian and coastal zones contain diverse plant species and aquatic and terrestrial wildlife.