Abstracts

Presented by Bryan Page - Email: b_page@ducks.ca

To address the eutrophication of Lake Erie, The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 2012 requested the Lake Erie basin governments to develop a Domestic Action Plan to guide the achievement of phosphorus reduction targets. In February 2018, the Canada-Ontario Lake Erie Action Plan was released highlighting the importance of wetland restoration as a recommended strategy to help reduce phosphorus loads entering Lake Erie. Based on this recommendation, Ducks Unlimited Canada developed a standardized wetland monitoring protocol to assess the nutrient retention capacity of newly restored wetlands in southwestern Ontario. The protocol was implemented in 2018 on eight newly restored wetland basins across southwestern Ontario. Inflows and outflows of each basin were equipped with continuous flow meters while water quality samples were collected intensively during the spring freshet and periodically in the fall, late spring and summer. Water level recorders and basin storage curves were employed to monitor available storage when basins were below spill-elevation. Net nutrient retention (load in – load out) were calculated on a daily basis. Preliminary results from the first 10 months of this ecological goods and services study will be presented.