LONG-TERM WATER QUALITY MONITORING OF WETLANDS IN ST. DENIS NATIONAL WILDLIFE AREA

Data Rescue intern: Jess Lerminiaux

In the fall of 2024, I had the opportunity to participate in an LDP Data Rescue internship, continuing the work done by previous intern Erica Fellin. This internship involved organizing and cleaning historical water quality data from St. Denis National Wildlife Area (SDNWA) that was collected by members of Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), the University of Regina (U of R), and the University of Saskatchewan (U of S). The goal was to publish the data on DataStream, an open-access online platform specific to water quality data. 

SDNWA is a 3.61 km2 area established in 1967 to facilitate research on the impacts of agricultural activities on wetlands within the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), a landscape shaped by glaciation. SDNWA comprises 200 wetland basins, aspen forest habitats, natural fescue prairies, and cultivated croplands. The wetlands play a vital role in supporting diverse waterfowl populations, serving as critical habitats for their reproduction and growth. 
ECCC sampled various wetlands within SDNWA from 1993-1999, while the U of R and U of S research began in 2006 and continues to the present day. Data include various water quality parameters (temperature, pH, conductivity, salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, chlorophyll a concentration, hardness, etc.), nutrient levels (various forms of nitrogen and phosphorus), sediment characteristics (elemental analyses, methylmercury concentration, etc.), greenhouse gas concentrations (CO2, CH4), and more.  


Throughout my internship, I developed a series of scripts in R to clean, organize, and prepare the SDNWA data for publication. Working with historical datasets deepened my appreciation for meticulous documentation, including clear annotations, well-labeled variable names, and detailed explanations to ensure that the data could make sense to someone else. I will carry this over into my own research and make sure that my data is thoroughly documented and easily interpretable, promoting transparency and reproducibility for others.  


Almost all the SDNWA data have been successfully published on DataStream. There were a few variables that were not able to get uploaded due to a lack of metadata, however the search for their details is ongoing. The DOIs for the published data are below. All R scripts, raw data, cleaned data, and metadata details for both dataset groups are housed in the Open Science Framework project: https://osf.io/ckw5t/?view_only=4a2926bf5ed34efeacc0d5e2c061b9ab. 

DOI for SDNWA data collected by ECCC: https://doi.org/10.25976/2mj9-z916  
DOI for SDNWA data collected by U of R/U of S: https://doi.org/10.25976/uh9o-y093