The RDRWA is a Watershed Planning and Advisory Council (WPAC) as designated under Alberta’s Water for Life Strategy. Through a number of key activities, we engage with a wide number of stakeholders that affect water and land use practices in your community, and therefore have an impact on our 49,000 sq km watershed.
Watershed Education and Outreach :
•The RDRWA offers an environmental education program reaching all grades. To date in 2015/ 16 we have reached around 1000 ... Read More
The RDRWA is a Watershed Planning and Advisory Council (WPAC) as designated under Alberta’s Water for Life Strategy. Through a number of key activities, we engage with a wide number of stakeholders that affect water and land use practices in your community, and therefore have an impact on our 49,000 sq km watershed.
Watershed Education and Outreach :
•The RDRWA offers an environmental education program reaching all grades. To date in 2015/ 16 we have reached around 1000 students, including various summer camps with a wide range of programs. This program is free to participants, curriculum based and aims to give a hands on approach to learning. We have also worked with students from Red Deer College and Olds College
We have developed the “X-Stream science” program with three other WPACs (including the Battle River Watershed Alliance). The program is a place-based, experiential learning program which conducts real-world water quality, and water health monitoring activities. The program links to wider citizen science initiatives and allows participants to see changes in water quality over time. We aim to launch the program around April 2016.
• Completion of the IWMP
We have reached a major milestone in our planning process to protect the health of the Red Deer River Watershed. Several years in the making, the RDRWA approved the Integrated Watershed Management Plan (Phase One, Water Quality) on January 22, 2016 with a view of releasing the document in March 2016. The shared implementation of this first phase will roll into our second phase looking at Watershed Health.
Project Blue Thumb: Action on Water Quality Issues
• This program seeks to accelerate solutions around a range of water quality issues in the Red Deer River watershed. As Alberta’s first social lab dedicated to addressing water challenges, the lab brings together a diverse (and growing) team of people to design, test, and iterate solutions and actively implement them. Recognizing that watersheds are complex systems - with a range of individuals and groups having different and competing needs - the lab team is working to transform the culture of watershed management and improve water quality. The lab also complements and enhances the RDRWA's ongoing work to develop an Integrated Watershed Management Plan for the Red Deer River watershed. Project Blue Thumb is led in partnership by the RDRWA and Alberta Ecotrust with support from Reos Partners.
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