Community Water Monitoring Feature – Summer 2025
Volunteers monitoring at Glen Urquhart ~ C. Doucet
Volunteers monitoring at Glen Urquhart ~ C. Doucet
Community members across the Comox Valley are stepping up to protect the health of local streams through the Community Water Monitoring Initiative!
What is the Community Water Monitoring Initiative?
Launched in the fall of 2024, the Community Water Monitoring Initiative (CWMI) empowers local stewardship groups to monitor and protect stream health using consistent, science-based methods aligned with BC provincial standards. This collaborative effort supports healthier ecosystems and better decision-making. Two groups — the Beaufort Watershed Stewards and the Millard-Piercy Watershed Stewards — had long-running water monitoring programs prior to the CWMI’s launch. Their experience and protocols helped shape the CWMI, and both groups remain integral to the broader program.
Morrison Creek Streamkeepers, Perseverance Creek Streamkeepers of the Cumberland Community Forest Society, and the Tsolum River Restoration Society, joined the initiative in 2024. Two additional groups — the Little River Enhancement Society and the Brooklyn Creek Watershed Society — are coming on board in 2025.
Project Watershed coordinates the initiative by providing training, equipment, and centralized data management for several of the participating groups. We oversee equipment maintenance and calibration, lead volunteer training sessions, and help ensure that all monitoring follows a standardized, scientifically rigorous methodology so that we can observe impacts to watersheds caused by climate change, industry, land use change, development and other local stressors over time. After several years of established protocols, it will also allow us to evaluate anomalies and establish an “alert” system to inform local authorities when they occur.
Water quality monitoring takes place twice annually — during summer low flows and the first fall flush — to capture critical seasonal conditions. Volunteers collect data on five key parameters: water temperature, turbidity, pH, specific conductivity, and dissolved oxygen.
This collaborative effort is made possible through support from members of the Comox Valley Conservation Partnership, with funding from the Comox Valley Community Foundation and the Comox Valley Regional District’s Rural Community Grant.
What have we been up to recently?
Last fall, several groups coordinated by Project Watershed completed a successful first monitoring season. The data collected forms the foundation of the CWMI’s regional baseline. Most groups collected five consecutive weeks of data following the start of the fall flush, with a few weeks of measurements also captured beforehand. While trends cannot be determined from a single season, these measurements will serve as a reference point for future years, allowing long-term patterns to emerge over time.
2024 Highlights:
- 6-8 consecutive weeks of water quality data was collected.
- 5 watersheds monitored at 19 locations.
- Over 220 volunteer hours contributed.
- Additionally, as part of their long-standing water monitoring programs:
- Millard-Piercy Watershed Stewards collected monthly measurements in the spring, as well as 5 consecutive weeks of measurements during the summer and fall at 12 locations across 2 watersheds.
- Beaufort Watershed Stewards collected 5 consecutive weeks of measurements during the summer and fall as well as biweekly measurements throughout the rest of the year at 29 locations across 20 watersheds, with some of those being part of the Regional District of Nanaimo’s Drinking Water & Watershed Protection Program.
Together, these efforts are contributing to a growing and regionally connected picture of stream health across the Comox Valley. The datasets are available to the public and decision-makers through Pacific DataStream:
- Project Watershed – Pacific DataStream
- Morrison Creek Streamkeepers – Pacific DataStream
- Tsolum River Restoration Society – Pacific DataStream
- Perseverance Creek Streamkeepers – Pacific DataStream
- Millard-Piercy Watershed Stewards – Pacific DataStream
- Beaufort Watershed Stewards – Pacific DataStream
What’s happening next?
Currently, groups are monitoring at multiple sites within their respective watersheds for five consecutive weeks to capture the summer low flow conditions. The next monitoring period will capture first fall flush conditions and will be taking place over five consecutive weeks in October/November. We will be holding more training sessions ahead of the fall monitoring in late September.
Casey training volunteers ~ V. East
2024 CWMI Monitoring Sites within Comox Valley
How to Get Involved
Meet our Project Team
Casey Doucet
Restoration & Monitoring Coordinator; Program lead, runs training, coordinates equipment & volunteers, manages data and assists with reporting.
Caitlin Pierzchalski
Executive Director - project oversight and grant management.