December 14, 2023 12 CT PM: MB Branch Webinar Series: An application of the Prioritize Target and Measure Application (PTMApp) for Canadian Prairie water retention sites and phosphorus reduction
This is the second webinar in the 2023-2024 MB Branch webinar series.
Presenter: Joey Simoes, M.Sc., P.Eng. (International Institute for Sustainable Development)
Within IISD’s vision to enhance naturalized water retention in Manitoba, water retention projects are located, designed, and managed strategically to provide multiple benefits. To better understand and improve the design and management of future water retention, IISD is monitoring small, naturalized dams to measure and model phosphorus reduction performance. To answer the question of location, IISD has developed a Prioritize, Target, and Measure Application (PTMApp) model in the Swan Lake study area (within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Living Lab Eastern Prairies), which will be the focus of this presentation.
PTMApp is a free-to-use model that can assess non-point source nutrient loading, BMP feasibility, and nutrient reduction under various hydrologic events, such as the 1-in-2 and 1-in-10 year 24-hour rainfall. In this application of PTMApp, two important characteristics of Canadian Prairie hydrology were accounted for: water storage BMP performance was evaluated using a spring runoff instead of rainstorm event, to strike a better balance between event frequency and high nutrient loading, and non-contributing areas for average annual hydrologic conditions were identified. This spatial targeting effort for water retention sites demonstrates what is possible today using widely available datasets like LiDAR in Manitoba. It also aims to encourage and guide similar efforts to maximize the benefits of future water retention investments in the province.
