Reports
2025 Annual Water Quality Reports
Long-term water quality monitoring by PSS volunteers, in partnership with the District of Central Saanich, is helping track changes in watershed health across KÉNNES (Hagan–Graham) and Tetayut Creeks. Together, these monitoring programs span 15–20 years of data on physical water quality, nutrients, metals, fecal coliforms, and hydrocarbons, providing valuable insight into long-term trends, persistent areas of concern, and the influence of stormwater, surrounding land use, and the Keating Industrial Area on aquatic ecosystems.
Bracing for Rain
Across the Capital Regional District, municipalities are taking different approaches to managing stormwater through policy, planning, regulation, and green infrastructure. Bracing for Rain compares these approaches using a standardized assessment framework, highlighting regional strengths, identifying gaps, and outlining opportunities to support more resilient, watershed-based stormwater management.
2026 Colquitz River Monitoring Report
Monitoring across the Colquitz River watershed is providing new insight into coho salmon and coastal cutthroat trout abundance, migration timing, habitat use, and population trends. Drawing on smolt trapping, PIT tagging, adult spawner surveys, and habitat monitoring, these findings help guide ongoing restoration and long-term management of this important urban watershed.
Student Section
Benchmarking Shoreline Resilience: A Cross-Municipal Review of Shoreline Protection Policies in the Capital Region
Completed through the University of Victoria Sustainability Scholars Program, this research by Mehdi Hosseini Dehaghani examines how municipalities across the Capital Region are using planning and policy tools to protect shorelines, manage coastal hazards, and support nature-based adaptation. The project combines interviews with municipal and subject-matter experts and a standardized benchmarking framework to compare shoreline policies, identify regional strengths and gaps, and highlight opportunities for more coordinated and resilient shoreline management.
RUSH Aquifer Project: Understanding the Water Beneath Our Feet
Completed through a shared University of Victoria Sustainability Scholars Program placement with NatuR&D, Ben Paquette-Struger’s RUSH Aquifer Project explores groundwater health across the Saanich Peninsula. By combining spatial mapping, water licence information, fish habitat data, and long-term groundwater level trends, the project helps make complex groundwater processes and pollution risks more accessible, giving users a visual way to understand how land use and potential contaminant sources can affect groundwater resources and why protecting aquifers is an important part of watershed stewardship.
2026 Rain Garden Quantification & Suitability Model of the Colquitz River Watershed
Prepared by Camosun College Environmental Technology students, this report identifies priority areas for rain garden implementation in the Colquitz River Watershed by integrating salmonid observation data, hydrological mapping, stormwater infrastructure, land cover analysis, and field sampling to support targeted 6PPD-Q mitigation and climate-resilient watershed planning.