Upper Thames River Watershed is in a Low Water Situation

Tuesday, 27 October 2015 08:40

Three months of low rainfall have left the Upper Thames watershed a little low.

The Upper Thames Low Water Response team has issued a Level One Low Water condition for the watershed.

Communications Specialist Eleanor Heagy tells Heart FM most people won't notice much of a difference with the low water condition.

"As far as impacts it's not going to do too much to us at this point because we are at the end of the growing season and we are not going to have people using water for irrigation purposes - it's more of awareness thing at this point. There's not really a lot that we can do about it because as I said there is not a lot of water uses this time of year, so water conservation is always a good thing to do regardless of whether or not there is a drought or high floods, water conservation is always good so if you have a well you might want to be aware of how much water you have drawn."

Level One Low Water is part of a three-tiered advisory system used in Ontario to inform the public of local low water conditions.

"We evaluate low water conditions by looking at several indicators, including precipitation over the past three months and stream flows over the past month," said Mark Shifflett, Senior Water Resources Engineer with the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority.

While June brought near record rainfall and high stream flows, precipitation totals from July to September were only half of normal across the watershed. The three months of below normal precipitation resulted in streams and rivers dropping steadily, and triggered the low water declaration.

"The trend has continued in October as we’ve had only half the normal amount of precipitation across much of the watershed, and stream flows have remained low," said Shifflett. "We need more rain to replenish the deficit that we’ve been experiencing. Stream flows usually recover in the early fall after summer lows, but this hasn’t happened yet."