The Boreal Watershed Initiative has received $1 million from the province and another $530,000 from industry partners.
Researchers are examining water quality, aquatic ecosystem health, air quality, soil quality, biodiversity and traditional land use.
Saskatchewan Environment chief biologist Kevin McCullum says the information is starting to come together:
“We know exponentially more now than we did a year ago, just based on some of the data we’ve collected and brought together. Even from some of the historical perspectives — some of the data that’s been collected throughout history — we’ve been able to pull some of that together and get a sense of a chronological or time series to see what’s happening in the north, to give us that baseline of facts.”
McCullum says once all of the information is compiled, it will be available to the public — possibly on a website.