Every five years, Ontario’s Conservation Authorities release report cards on the health of our watersheds. The report cards all measure forest conditions, groundwater quality and surface water quality, and some include other metrics such as wetland or impervious land cover. Recently, Conservation Halton released their 2018 Watershed Report Card.
The Conservation Authority found that in more urbanized areas surface water quality, and forest conditions ranged from poor to very poor. While in the Greenbelt, “we have better surface water quality, more robust forest cover and lower amounts of impervious cover” says Kim Barrett, Associate Director, Science and Partnerships at Conservation Halton.Read more
From a landscape perspective, green infrastructure is an effective tool for mitigating the negative impacts development has on the natural heritage and agricultural systems of the Greenbelt. A prime example is helping to clean and cool water before it enters the river systems, which is important for rivers as a habitat and as a resource.Read more
Green infrastructure can help mitigate the negative impacts of development, build resiliency to climate change, and help reduce infrastructure costs.
The Greenbelt itself can be thought of as a regional scale green infrastructure. The Greenbelt includes over 290,000 hectares of protected natural features, such as wetlands, hedgerows, and forests. These protected spaces provide a multitude of services to our communities, ranging from reducing the risk of floods, reducing health care costs, to storing carbon.
To get a better understanding about the multitude of benefits that green infrastructure provides; we sat down with Tom Bowers, the Foundation’s Research Manager. This is the second blog post in a series that explores the multitude of benefits that green infrastructure provides to our communities.Read more
The watersheds around Spencer Creek, Christie Lake, Valens Lake and other creeks and lakes, connect the communities in Hamilton and are part of the Greenbelt. Studies show that the natural features and functions of these watersheds are under stress.
One major stressor is the impact of impervious surfaces, such as roofs and roads, diverting rainfall from natural water filtration process to pipes and sewers or directly into waterways. This runoff leads to erosion, flooding and water pollution.
Our watersheds need to be healthier and more resilient to the changing climate, which is bringing more frequent and severe floods and droughts. Green Infrastructure is one of the approaches to address these problems, and has the potential to improve water quality, reduce the risk of floods, and ensure our watersheds are more resilient.Read more