Shiningbank Lake Community Stewardship Initiative
Partners.
Shiningbank Lake Community Stewardship Initiative
Overview.
SACA secured funding with the Land Stewardship Centre of Canada to launch a Community Stewardship Initiative on Shiningbank Lake. This project was brought forth by Yellowhead County amid concerns surrounding the health of the lake, the lake riparian areas and the land adjacent to the lake.
This initiative aims to bring awareness of riparian health, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, water quality, and shoreline health to landowners, producers and recreational users on or near Shiningbank Lake.
The current objectives of the project include:
Increase awareness, understanding and engagement at the community level in regards to environmental concerns, ecosystem & aquatic health and the important functions of these features, along with how and what types of Best Management Practices could be implemented to help maintain or improve lake health overall.
Benchmarking of water quality, erosion, and shoreline health to assess the current health status of the lake, identify any areas of concern, and to track any changes over time.
Conduct Riparian Health Assessments/Inventories on areas surrounding the lake to assess the current condition of the Riparian areas and identify any areas that may benefit from management changes, or other improvement initiatives.
Funding for this project provided by: Land Stewardship Centre
Project Progress.
The project officially launched in the summer of 2017. Preliminary Riparian Health Assessments were conducted on a few parcels of land directly on the lake in August of 2017. Two rounds of water quality sampling were also conducted; one basic and one more detailed.
Surveys were distributed to residents near the lake as well, and the results from these were used to direct extension programming throughout the remainder of the project.
A partial report on the Riparian Health Assessments and Water Quality results will be available as soon as it is completed.
More water sampling and detailed Riparian Health Assessments were conducted in 2018. This project will continue to progress into 2019. We will be sure to provide updates regularly as the project continues to progress.