International Watersheds Initiative Projects

The International Joint Commission’s boards in watersheds along the US-Canada border carry out International Watersheds Initiative (IWI) projects to promote communication, conduct scientific studies and contribute to the resolution of watershed issues. Projects are developed by a board and reviewed by Commission staff. All projects are consistent with the board’s mandate and meet the objectives of the IWI. Learn more about the International Watersheds Initiative.

Displaying 1 - 44 of 44.

Year
2022
Project Description
This project will continue the development of a long-term stable isotope monitoring network for the St. Mary and Milk River basins that supports source water separation and identification. A coupled isotope-hydrologic model of the basins will be applied to simulate isotopic separations and source...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2021
Project Description
This project analyzed existing historic isotopic data obtained for the region and previously catalogued by the proponent and contrast these data with data collected in 2020, representing the first time in over 100 years that water isotopic signatures on the Milk River were derived solely from its...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2020
Project Description
The purpose of this project was to design and develop a visualization tool to illustrate the river profile downstream of Kootenay Lake given certain inflow, outflow, and lake level conditions. The information is presented through a user-friendly, interactive, web-based, dynamic visualization tool...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2020
Project Description
As climate change influences the conditions in the Osoyoos Lake Basin, it is important for the International Osoyoos Lake Board of Control to better understand how hydrologic conditions resulting from future climate scenarios interact with the current lake-level rule curve and drought criteria...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2019
Project Description
The Red River is susceptible to periods of dry conditions that have the potential to adversely impact ecological conditions and water supply. The project is aligned with International Red River Board’s work plan by improving water quantity knowledge for water quantity apportionment and Instream Flow...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2019
Project Description
The primary goal of this project is to develop a historical database representing annual or sub-annual evapotranspiration (ET) totals in the Milk and St. Mary River basins from 1982-2018 using remote sensing. This database will lay the foundation for the establishment of a remote sensing tool to...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2019
Project Description
This project is a continuation of ongoing GLAM efforts to collect data to support model validation and will result in detailed vegetation community data referenced to elevation and seasonal water levels in 16 Lake Ontario coastal wetlands. The current year of this project is focused on resurveying...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2019
Project Description
The Osoyoos Lake Board of Control is developing a multi-year, multi-phase project to analyze the vulnerability of Osoyoos Lake and the relevant IJC Orders of Approval to a projected shift in the climate and hydrology of the Okanagan/Okanogan and Similkameen Basins. Inflow to Osoyoos Lake is mostly...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2019
Project Description
Winter operations of the Moses-Saunders Dam (St. Lawrence River) in accordance with direction from the IJC’s International Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River Board (ILOSLRB) have historically resulted in a large drawdown in water levels on Lake St. Lawrence (the forebay for the hydropower structures)...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2018
Project Description
SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes) is a watershed model that relates patterns in water quality to human activities and natural processes. Using existing monitoring data, SPARROW analyses the water quality of streams, rivers, and lakes in relation to the location and...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2018
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2018
Project Description
This is a continuation of ongoing GLAM efforts to collect data to support model validation. This project will result in detailed vegetation community data referenced to elevation and seasonal water levels in 16 Lake Ontario coastal wetlands (i.e., the same 16 wetlands that were surveyed in 2017)...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
High water levels throughout the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system in 2017 impacted several shoreline communities, stakeholders and businesses. This project consists of analyzing aerial imagery data collected in 2016 by NOAA, 2012 and 2017 by the Army Corps of Engineers, 2017 by Transport...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes) is a watershed model that relates patterns in water quality to human activities and natural processes. Using existing monitoring data, SPARROW analyses the water quality of streams, rivers, and lakes in relation to the location and...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes) is a watershed model that relates patterns in water quality to human activities and natural processes. Using existing monitoring data, SPARROW analyses the water quality of streams, rivers, and lakes in relation to the location and...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
The East Grand Lake Basin in eastern Maine and southwestern New Brunswick drains an area of 132 mi2. The impoundment provides storage for hydropower operations and the maintenance of minimum streamflows on Forest City Stream for environmental compliance. Estimates of unregulated hydrology for the...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
The Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA) is an operational near real-time gridded precipitation product from Environment Canada available since April 2011 for North America. CaPA has generated a lot of enthusiasm in the Great Lakes area, due to its unique capability of capturing some of the...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
Estimates of consumptive use and evaporative losses are an important component of the computation of the natural flow of the Milk River and apportionment of Milk River water between the U.S. and Canada.
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
This project is a continuation of ongoing GLAM efforts to collect data to support model validation and will result in detailed vegetation community data referenced to elevation and seasonal water levels in 16 Lake Ontario coastal wetlands. The collected data will augment existing datasets from...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
Lake Superior regulation affects levels and flows in the lower St. Marys River. Unnatural changes in outflow can occur at the beginning of each month and the Board of Control has been working on methods to quantify impacts associated with regulation to better accommodate environmental objectives.
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
The board intends to incorporate recently developed alewife population models into a user friendly, plain language tool depicting the theoretical outcomes of: i) changes in fish passage and ii) commercial harvest to alewife runs in the St. Croix River. The end-product will be a graphic web-based...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
A basin-wide study using 10-25 years of data from 37 sites is being performed to develop an up-to-date water quality trend analysis for a variety of contaminants, such as nutrients, sulfate and chloride. This analysis uses the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) software QWTrend to effectively estimate...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2016
Project Description
SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes) is a watershed model that relates patterns in water quality to human activities and natural processes. Using existing monitoring data, SPARROW analyses the water quality of streams, rivers, and lakes in relation to the location and...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2016
Project Description
The unique physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the St. Marys River, which is the outlet of Lake Superior connected to Lake Michigan-Huron downstream, provide for a rich and diverse environment that is a vitally important aquatic resource in the upper Great Lakes system. This project...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2016
Project Description
In line with the final goal established in 2015 of generating a 30-year, 15-km, daily hindcast of precipitation, evaporation and runoff for all Canada/U.S. transboundary watersheds, this project focuses on the production of a 5-year hindcast of the Canadian Precipitation Analysis system (CaPA), the...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2016
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2016
Project Description
This project aims to provide the International Joint Commission (IJC) with technical recommendations on user-friendly, automated, online interactive visualization tools for communicating dynamic data and other scientific information to IJC’s boards, stakeholders and the public. Having produced...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
In light of a planned 3-year long gate refurbishment project at the Fort Frances dam on the Rainy River, an existing 2-D hydrodynamic model will be updated with recent measured water level data in order to simulate the conveyance losses due to gate closures during refurbishment. In addition to this...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The purpose of this project is to develop a new historical record of monthly runoff, over-lake evaporation, over-lake precipitation, and connecting channel flows for each of the Great Lakes using a novel statistical model that (through an explicit acknowledgment of bias and uncertainty) reconciles...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The wetlands meadow marsh performance indicator has been a critical component of the evaluation of water level regulation plan options for the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system and it is important to validate and improve the modelling approach. This project aims to produce a modelling tool that...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
StreamStats, developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), is a Web-based Geographic Information System (GIS). It provides users with access to an assortment of analytical tools useful for water-resources planning and management, along with engineering applications. StreamStats makes the process...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA) is an operational near real-time gridded precipitation product from Environment Canada available since April 2011 for North America. CaPA has generated a lot of enthusiasm in the Great Lakes area, due to its unique capability of capturing some of the...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes) is a watershed model that relates patterns in water quality to human activities and natural processes. Using existing monitoring data, SPARROW analyses the water quality of streams, rivers, and lakes in relation to the location and...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
SPARROW (SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes) is a watershed model that relates patterns in water quality to human activities and natural processes. Using existing monitoring data, SPARROW analyses the water quality of streams, rivers, and lakes in relation to the location and...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
This project aims to acquire high-resolution aerial imagery in maximum-vegetation condition for sixteen Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River coastal wetlands, use GIS to map the vegetation types within these wetlands, and then assess similarities and differences in wetland extent from equivalent...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
This project will result in detailed vegetation community information referenced to elevation in 16 Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River coastal wetlands on the US side. The proposed work complements planned work in Ontario wetlands and will allow the development of a lakewide, binational assessment...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The overall objective of this project is to develop a new, authoritative, coordinated numerical model that efficiently and accurately simulates water levels and connecting channel flows in the Great Lakes system given user-specified net basin supply scenarios. The new regulation and routing model...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
This project is the fifth and final phase of the two-dimensional hydrodynamic model to simulate hypothetical flood mitigation scenarios on the lower Pembina River Floodplains. The latest modelling efforts on hypothetical flooding in the Pembina Basin explores the potential relief of floods through...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The environmental performance indicators (PI) for the Lower St. Lawrence River (IERM2D) are a critical component of the evaluation of water level regulation plans for the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system and are important to maintain in an adaptive management perspective. These PIs have been...
Bundle name
IWI Project