International Watersheds Initiative Projects

The International Joint Commission’s boards in watersheds along the US-Canada border carry out International Watersheds Initiative (IWI) projects to promote communication, conduct scientific studies and contribute to the resolution of watershed issues. Projects are developed by a board and reviewed by Commission staff. All projects are consistent with the board’s mandate and meet the objectives of the IWI. Learn more about the International Watersheds Initiative.

Displaying 1 - 36 of 36.

Year
2023
Project Description
The International Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Board is mandated to recommend objectives for boundary waters, to select and establish alert levels, identify potential problems for boundary waters, and to report on exceedances of these and trends of water quality and aquatic ecosystem health...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2022
Project Description
This project will continue the development of a long-term stable isotope monitoring network for the St. Mary and Milk River basins that supports source water separation and identification. A coupled isotope-hydrologic model of the basins will be applied to simulate isotopic separations and source...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2021
Project Description
This project complements an existing project conducted by the Okanagan Basin Watershed Board (OBWB) to collect near-shore bathymetry data over the Canadian portion of Osoyoos Lake, upstream connecting water bodies, and Okanagan Lake. This project extends the OBWB’s work area to include the U.S...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2021
Project Description
The southern end of Osoyoos Lake and the outlet of Osoyoos Lake and Zosel Dam have become increasingly prone to ice jams in recent years. This has led to increased lake levels and decreased discharge downstream which has negatively impacted local salmon populations. This project will complete a...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2020
Project Description
The purpose of this project was to design and develop a visualization tool to illustrate the river profile downstream of Kootenay Lake given certain inflow, outflow, and lake level conditions. The information is presented through a user-friendly, interactive, web-based, dynamic visualization tool...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2020
Project Description
As climate change influences the conditions in the Osoyoos Lake Basin, it is important for the International Osoyoos Lake Board of Control to better understand how hydrologic conditions resulting from future climate scenarios interact with the current lake-level rule curve and drought criteria...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2019
Project Description
The Red River is susceptible to periods of dry conditions that have the potential to adversely impact ecological conditions and water supply. The project is aligned with International Red River Board’s work plan by improving water quantity knowledge for water quantity apportionment and Instream Flow...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2019
Project Description
Winter operations of the Moses-Saunders Dam (St. Lawrence River) in accordance with direction from the IJC’s International Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River Board (ILOSLRB) have historically resulted in a large drawdown in water levels on Lake St. Lawrence (the forebay for the hydropower structures)...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2018
Project Description
Historically low 2018 water levels in Lake St. Lawrence have prompted concerns that fish populations and habitat may be locally impacted. Long-term residents of the Long Sault area have indicated that low water levels have exposed an unprecedented area of river bottom that has been affecting both...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2018
Project Description
This IWI project investigated how variations in river flow affect dissolved oxygen levels, which are important to determining biological conditions in a river. The project covered a 5-year period from 2019 to 2023. The project work consisted of installing and maintaining continuous water-quality...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2018
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
High water levels throughout the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system in 2017 impacted several shoreline communities, stakeholders and businesses. This project consists of analyzing aerial imagery data collected in 2016 by NOAA, 2012 and 2017 by the Army Corps of Engineers, 2017 by Transport...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
During the high water event of 2017, the Board responded to the communications challenge on many fronts.
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
The East Grand Lake Basin in eastern Maine and southwestern New Brunswick drains an area of 132 mi2. The impoundment provides storage for hydropower operations and the maintenance of minimum streamflows on Forest City Stream for environmental compliance. Estimates of unregulated hydrology for the...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
Estimates of consumptive use and evaporative losses are an important component of the computation of the natural flow of the Milk River and apportionment of Milk River water between the U.S. and Canada.
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
Monuments indicating the historic peak lake level of Osoyoos Lake documented in 1894, 1972, 1974, and 1997 by the U.S. Geological Survey will be constructed at public parks on both sides of the border in Osoyoos, British Columbia and Oroville, Washington. These prominently displayed historic peak...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
Lake Superior regulation affects levels and flows in the lower St. Marys River. Unnatural changes in outflow can occur at the beginning of each month and the Board of Control has been working on methods to quantify impacts associated with regulation to better accommodate environmental objectives.
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
High water levels throughout the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system in 2017 impacted several shoreline communities, stakeholders and businesses including recreational boating marinas and yacht clubs. Media reports highlighted several marinas and yacht clubs that were flooded and had their...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
In 2017, high Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River water levels caused problems for municipal water and wastewater operators as well as some industrial facilities throughout the system. Challenges included poor drainage through municipal wastewater infrastructure in low lying areas close to the...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2017
Project Description
A basin-wide study using 10-25 years of data from 37 sites is being performed to develop an up-to-date water quality trend analysis for a variety of contaminants, such as nutrients, sulfate and chloride. This analysis uses the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) software QWTrend to effectively estimate...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2016
Project Description
In line with the final goal established in 2015 of generating a 30-year, 15-km, daily hindcast of precipitation, evaporation and runoff for all Canada/U.S. transboundary watersheds, this project focuses on the production of a 5-year hindcast of the Canadian Precipitation Analysis system (CaPA), the...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2016
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2016
Project Description
Estimates of consumptive use and evaporative losses are an important component of the computation of the natural flow of the Milk River and apportionment of Milk River water between the U.S. and Canada.
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
In light of a planned 3-year long gate refurbishment project at the Fort Frances dam on the Rainy River, an existing 2-D hydrodynamic model will be updated with recent measured water level data in order to simulate the conveyance losses due to gate closures during refurbishment. In addition to this...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The purpose of this project is to develop a new historical record of monthly runoff, over-lake evaporation, over-lake precipitation, and connecting channel flows for each of the Great Lakes using a novel statistical model that (through an explicit acknowledgment of bias and uncertainty) reconciles...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
Flow measurements at the Compensating Works at the head of the St. Marys Rapids will be conducted throughout the summer and fall of 2015 in order to establish and verify relationships used to determine flow through the St. Marys Rapids at multiple partially open gate settings. The International Lake...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The Canadian Precipitation Analysis (CaPA) is an operational near real-time gridded precipitation product from Environment Canada available since April 2011 for North America. CaPA has generated a lot of enthusiasm in the Great Lakes area, due to its unique capability of capturing some of the...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
Estimates of consumptive use and evaporative losses are an important component of the computation of the natural flow of the Milk River and apportionment of Milk River water between the U.S. and Canada.
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The United States and Canada independently developed their own suite of hydrographic datasets using different standards and approaches. Containing mapped rivers, lakes, and watershed boundaries, these national datasets stopped at the international border and often did not line up, leaving an area of...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The overall objective of this project is to develop a new, authoritative, coordinated numerical model that efficiently and accurately simulates water levels and connecting channel flows in the Great Lakes system given user-specified net basin supply scenarios. The new regulation and routing model...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
This project is the fifth and final phase of the two-dimensional hydrodynamic model to simulate hypothetical flood mitigation scenarios on the lower Pembina River Floodplains. The latest modelling efforts on hypothetical flooding in the Pembina Basin explores the potential relief of floods through...
Bundle name
IWI Project
Year
2015
Project Description
The environmental performance indicators (PI) for the Lower St. Lawrence River (IERM2D) are a critical component of the evaluation of water level regulation plans for the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system and are important to maintain in an adaptive management perspective. These PIs have been...
Bundle name
IWI Project