Riverbank Makeover Project

Similar to 2018, this year Calgary River Valleys is again doing a “Riverbank Makeover” project with a homeowner who backs onto the Elbow River, with funding support from City of Calgary Water Resources. This project is in alignment with the City’s recently adopted program, the Riparian Action Program, which is designed to improve and maintain the health of river-adjacent areas as well as the quality and quantity of water flowing through Calgary’s rivers and creeks.

The project this year has 3 main components:

• Research about people’s knowledge of riparian issues,
• Field work to modify an Elbow River adjacent homeowner’s riparian zone with new vegetation and monitor its success over time, and
• Educate the public about the value and function of riparian zones in our ecosystem.

Click here to learn more about this project.

Elbow River Brown Trout Redd Count

This project was supported by a Watershed Stewardship Grant, a program of the Land Stewardship Centre,  as well as our own operational funds, and support from City of Calgary Water Resources. We appreciate the support provided by these partners which allows this important citizen science project to proceed.

Calgary River Valleys has been working with other groups to count Brown Trout redds or spawning nests in the lower Elbow River since 1994, and has been the main sponsor of this important project since 2009. We want to ensure this citizen science continues as an annual count in order to ensure the data collected is as accurate as it can be, that trends over time can be observed, and the location of redds can be used to ensure land use decisions don’t negatively impact Calgary’s blue-ribbon trout fishery. In 2018, we were able to include, for the first time, data collection on Brown Trout redds in the Upper Elbow on the western edge of Calgary to establish a baseline in that reach.

These counts are conducted in November after spawning by the Brown Trout has occurred, a behavior that is triggered by water temperatures becoming sufficiently cold in the late fall. You are invited to participate in the 2019 Redd Survey dates, which will likely be on Saturday November 2 or 9 (Upper Elbow Count) and Friday November 3 or 10 (Lower Elbow Count). Click here to learn more about this project, and then scroll down.

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