Breaking the dry spells

“That’s why irrigation has been integral to southern Alberta for more than a century, creating stable food production, creating thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars of annual economic benefit,” says Philips.

Water is also needed for the many prairie pothole wetlands, the depressions left behind on the landscape when glaciers retreated.

The BRID’s operations to bring water here began in full force in 1920. It’s no coincidence that as an organization with a history rooted in drought, Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) would eventually join forces with them. In fact, according to Morgan Stromsmoe, DUC head of habitat asset management in Alberta, DUC works co-operatively with eight of the province’s 13 irrigation districts.

“We currently manage more than 700 wetland basins that are supplemented with water provided by an irrigation district. Over the last eight decades we’ve invested nearly $50 million in irrigation-related infrastructure, allowing us to conserve over 72,000 acres (29,150 hectares) of critical wetland habitat.”

Stromsmoe notes that traditionally all the water used to supply DUC’s habitat projects was spillwater, the water that has already been used by producers and is on its way back to the river. “We’re careful not to compete with ranchers and farmers. By using spillwater we’ve been able to make existing basins more stable, reducing the risk of drought, without impacting water availability for producers,” says Stromsmoe. “With better technology and irrigation efficiency, less spillwater is available today, so these partnerships with irrigation districts have become more vital as we work closer together to share limited water resources.”

The working partnerships between DUC and the irrigation districts extend well beyond securing water. DUC shares responsibility for annual repair and maintenance costs of dams, ditches and control structures with several irrigation districts.

DUC’s wetland impoundments provide reliable water sources in pastures, helping distribute cattle more evenly across the field, and allowing ranchers to maximize forage availability while utilizing the grass in a sustainable manner. According to BRID’s Dana Fleming, “cattle distribution on our pastures has dramatically improved because of DUC’s wetlands. In fact, one of the local grazing associations noted they wouldn’t have been able to keep cattle on one of their leases without DUC’s adjacent water impoundment, which BRID manages on behalf of DUC.”

Phillips, an avid angler and hunter, notes that the biodiversity supported by BRID’s reservoirs and DUC’s spillwater-fed wetlands is “incredible,” offering immeasurable spinoffs for outdoor enthusiasts of all ages. “I grew up fishing for walleye and pike in irrigation reservoirs, and Vauxhall is like a heaven for a hunter,” says Phillips, who notes that in addition to the abundant ducks and geese attracted to the area, he’s seen white-faced ibis, pelicans, black crowned night herons, songbirds, elk, moose and deer.

The future of DUC partnerships with Alberta’s irrigation districts is bright, says Stromsmoe.

“At one time, our interests in establishing wetlands within irrigation districts focused on waterfowl production. With an expanding human footprint and climate change, our irrigation-based projects have become increasingly important for the additional benefits they provide to biodiversity and to carbon sequestration. The irrigation partnerships are key to the success of DUC’s conservation mandate; our shared recognition of multi-use benefits ensures our collaborative approach to wetland conservation serves all Albertans.”

Storage solutions

Whether talking about wildlife habitat, climate change, fighting floods and drought, carbon capture and storage, wildfires, or food security and human health, what we need today is more water on the landscape. That’s why DUC is working to find ways to both maintain the water storage that we already have and increase storage capacity. Here’s a few examples of how we’re doing just that.

Harnessing the power of small dams to keep water on British Columbia’s landscapes

You may be surprised to learn that DUC owns or manages more than 600 dams in B.C. alone. The backstory on how our wetland-focused charity became the province’s largest owner of water-storage infrastructure dates back more than 50 years, when DUC entered partnerships with private landowners and the B.C. provincial government. These projects were often collaborations between DUC — which sought wetland habitat for waterfowl — and ranchers and farmers, looking for reliable irrigation and water for livestock. Sound familiar? In many ways, this is a similar relationship to the one DUC holds with irrigation districts in Alberta.

Most dams and water-storage structures that DUC manages and owns in B.C. are built with little or no concrete. These are earthen dams, between one and three metres high. Often there is some so-called “hard infrastructure” as well, such as steel weirs or concrete drop-boxes. But these are not mega-dams — far from it. They are comparatively modest projects that restore or enhance existing wetlands, allowing them
to retain more water, longer.

Earthen structures managed by DUC around B.C. help store water when rain falls, and slow down its release into the watershed. This means more water sinks through the land to recharge underground aquifers, instead of running off dry soil into rivers and lakes.

Can nature’s engineers take a bite out of drought?

One reason why B.C.’s landscape is drier now — making it more prone to floods and fires —is because there is less naturally occurring water storage infrastructure, such as the dams built by some of B.C.’s most industrious environmental engineers: beavers, whose populations had dropped markedly across Canada with the arrival of settlers and fur traders.

More recently, their numbers have been rebounding. And a growing body of research is demonstrating that beaver dams are a low-tech, cost-efficient way to promote climate resilience. A study published this year by the Geological Society of America revealed that riverscapes with beaver dams had “significant resistance to burning” during large wildfires, as well as “valuable secondary benefits in postfire ecosystem health, water quality and biodiversity.”

DUC and our partners are exploring opportunities where beaver dam analogs — or human-made structures that mimic the form and function of a natural beaver dam — could be used in place of engineered impoundments.

B.C. needs to keep more water on, and within, the landscape for longer periods. In combination, these natural and small-scale water storage solutions could be the answer.

A Proven method of storing water in Manitoba

In Manitoba, DUC’s work centres on constructing small dams, vital for maintaining water distribution and habitat quality during critical times.

DUC staff recently completed a rebuild of the Proven Lake wetland project. Proven Lake represents over 4,800 acres (1,942 hectares) of wetland habitat, mainly located within a Wildlife Management Area south of Riding Mountain National Park. DUC became involved in 1947 and the 2024 rebuild included replacing water controls which protect private farmland and municipal roads from flooding.

The main control structure — rebuilt to maintain the water level established in 1981—now incorporates a fish passage to increase spawning potential. DUC has enlisted local landowners to help operate the structure under a 30-year funding agreement with the local watershed district. Now, surrounding communities have a place for water to be stored both in times of scarcity and in times of overabundance.

Conservation Easements: Agreements that help ease the squeeze of prairie droughts

With exceptionally little rainfall across the prairies in the past several years, the true value of retaining wetlands on farmland has become even more apparent.

That’s why more producers are taking advantage of DUC conservation easements. These agreements offer plenty of flexibility to meet the individual needs of farmers and ranchers, while conserving important wildlife habitat — like wetlands and grasslands — in perpetuity.

Conservation easements work, financially and environmentally. Conserved wetlands ensure a reliable source of water. Conserved perennial grasslands and shrubby areas provide habitat for both grazing and wildlife, while regenerating soil. It’s a win-win-win situation: for landowners, biodiversity and overall land health.