Programs and Issues

Alberta Environment conducts extensive water quality field studies throughout Alberta to support the government's regulatory, water management and environmental assessment decision-making. The department also provides significant consultative and advisory services, on a wide range of water quality issues, to various agencies, industries, institutions and municipalities.

Data are reported in brochures, reports and scientific papers, as well as in "Measuring Up" - the Annual Report of the Government of Alberta. This section provides an overview of water quality conditions in Alberta and describes the major water quality studies, issues and topics of concern.

Surface water quality assessments have been conducted on lakes and rivers in Alberta since the 1940's. The nature of monitoring activities has reflected the contemporary issues of concern, and continues to evolve. In the early years, work focused on basic resource inventory studies in rural and unsettled areas, and on pollution of Alberta rivers by industrial and municipal point-source discharges. With the evolution of provincial legislation and the regulatory authority to control point-source impacts, assessments expanded to include non-point sources such as forestry operations, agricultural activities, the mining sector, urban runoff and atmospheric deposition.

These studies dealt mainly with pollutants in the water column, and the evolution of these issues forced the development of more refined sampling and analytical techniques. The capability to detect pollutants moved from the parts per million to parts per billion range. Much of this type of work continues on Alberta's lakes and rivers.

At the forefront of today's environmental issues are new concerns dealing with the general health of aquatic ecosystems, as reflected by the presence of minute quantities of toxic contaminants in various ecosystem components (animals, plants, sediments, water). The tendency for some of these contaminants to bio-accumulate in animal tissues poses direct concerns to human health. The analytical technology developed in the past decade enables scientists to detect some of these substances in various media at the part per trillion or quadrillion range.

Field investigations of water quality are classified into four functional activities, depending on the nature of the issue being addressed.

• Long-term monitoring: ongoing studies at fixed locations that provide data for the analysis of trends in water quality over time.
• Short-term surveys: studies that provide data to describe water quality patterns across defined geographical areas.
• Impact assessments: studies conducted to evaluate the impact of a specific facility or activity on water quality.
• Research: studies designed to test hypotheses about factors influencing water quality.
• Future detailed information contained in this section will be available by:
• Major river basins (highlighting the major issues and studies in each basin, including rivers, streams and lakes).
• Topic (providing a concise summary of the major water quality issues being addressed in Alberta).