Medicine River Watershed

Concerns

An extended drought (>10 years) in conjunction with increased community need and withdrawal of fresh water from the Medicine River, its tributaries and the Paskapoo aquifer for industrial purposes has resulted in water shortage advisories, the drying up of sloughs and dugouts and many reports of individual water wells going dry and needing to be lowered or re-dug. Despite the water advisory, temporary water diversion licenses continue to be issued to industry as the conditions for license issuing is based on data that does not adequately or appropriately reflect the actual water flow or availability within the watershed and its aquifer

Intended audience

Our group or organization, Our community, Government and decision makers, Broad audience/everyone

Intended use

Benchmarking of water body or watershed health, Share and compare results across watersheds., Education and engagement of local communities, Use in resource prioritization and decision making

Monitoring program details

Method and parameters details

View form

Water quality criteria

Canada

Sampling frequency

Monthly Water Rangers Protocol We plan to test the river levels and status once/month for 6 months each year from May- October.

Data sharing

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• (under review) This group has requested to be integrated with DataStream

Latest contribution to the dataset

Debbie Leitch

Contributor leaderboard

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   Debbie Leitch

   42 Datapoints

   Latest 2 July 2026