Keeping Watch Over the Nechako: Indigenous-Led Water Monitoring Strengthens Salmon Stewardship
Healthy rivers are constantly changing. Water levels rise and fall, temperatures fluctuate and droughts or floods can quickly alter the conditions salmon depend on to survive.
For First Nations who have stewarded these waters for generations, understanding these changes is essential. Reliable water information helps communities respond to climate impacts, identify risks before they become emergencies, and make informed decisions that protect salmon and their habitat.
Since 2015, the Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance (UFFCA) has been building an Indigenous-led water monitoring network throughout the Nechako watershed. Today, dozens of monitoring stations collect information that helps Upper Fraser First Nations better understand the health of their rivers and streams.
Map of UFFCA’s Aquatic Monitoring Network (Photo credit: Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance)
Building Indigenous Capacity
UFFCA has built a fully Indigenous field crew that travels throughout the watershed each year, collecting water measurements and checking monitoring stations to ensure the information they provide is accurate and reliable.
This work not only strengthens the monitoring network but also builds local expertise and long-term Indigenous capacity to care for the watershed.
Flexible Funding That Met the Need
With support from the Indigenous Stewardship Fund (ISF), UFFCA strengthened its monitoring program by purchasing new field equipment needed to continue collecting accurate water information (an Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter and a YSI multiparameter instrument).
As equipment costs increased, UFFCA adjusted its original work plan to prioritize replacing aging monitoring tools and purchasing equipment that would improve field efficiency. The flexibility of ISF’s funding allowed the team to respond to these changing needs without delaying the project, while also giving UFFCA the freedom to set its own habitat protection priorities and direct the work where it was needed most, rather than adapting the project to fit predefined funding requirements.
The new equipment also enabled UFFCA to send two field crews into the watershed at the same time, allowing more monitoring sites to be visited throughout the field season.
Field trainer, Ashley Raphael, installing antenna on new real time station. (Left) Senior Field Technician, Deane Carlson, collecting a discharge measurement using the Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV) (Right)
YSI ProDSS being used to collect water quality in Burns Lake. (Left) Field trainer, Rebecca Broadbent, recording water quality measurementrs collected using the YSI ProDSS at Wansa Creek. (Right) (Photo Credit: Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance)
Turning Data into Action
The information collected through UFFCA’s monitoring network is shared directly with 23 Upper Fraser Nations, providing timely updates on water levels and temperatures across the watershed.
This information helps communities identify emerging drought conditions, understand how changing environmental conditions may affect salmon and make informed stewardship decisions based on reliable local data.
As climate change continues to affect British Columbia’s watersheds, Indigenous-led monitoring programs like this are becoming an increasingly important tool for protecting salmon and strengthening community resilience.
Learn more about the Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance (UFFCA)
Watch the video below to see how UFFCA is advancing Indigenous-led stewardship and protecting salmon and their habitats with support from ISF:
The Indigenous Stewardship Fund (ISF) works in close partnership with the First Nations Fisheries Council (FNFC), which serves as a frontline organization for collaboration with First Nations across British Columbia. FNFC leads relationship-building and engagement with more than 200 First Nations across the province, listening to and identifying Nations’ interests, priorities and perspectives. ISF complements this work by serving as the funding mechanism that helps turn those relationships and priorities into action. Together, FNFC and ISF ensure that the leadership, needs and priorities of BC First Nations are met with flexible and accessible resources that support Indigenous-led stewardship, habitat protection and long-term environmental resilience.
