The Mackenzie River Basin (MRB) is the 12^th largest drainage basin in the world, is the fourth largest river discharging to the Arctic Ocean and is Canada’s largest river basin covers one fifth of the country.  Major rivers of the basin include the Athabasca, Peace, Slave, Liard, Arctic Red, Peel and the mainstem Mackenzie.  The MRB transcends several Provincial and Territorial jurisdictions and is home to approx. 500,000 people, including multiple First Nations, Metis or Inuit communities. Over the past 40 years, the MRB has been under increasing stress from developments both within and external to the system. Sources of environmental stressors include land-use activities (forestry, agriculture, metal mining), flow regulation from hydroelectric dams, and nutrient/contaminants inputs associated municipal waste- and stormwater discharges, and effluents/emissions from regional pulp and paper and oil and gas (including oil sands) developments. More recently, climate change related impacts such as extreme high and low hydrologic events, forest fires and permafrost thaw have also increased in frequency and/or duration. Correspondingly, over the decades there have been a plethora of aquatic monitoring and research programs that have come and gone to inform condition of environment assessments and reporting and related regulatory and basin management decision-making processes. In this presentation we provide an overview of challenges, successes and limitations of the various monitoring, research and basin governance efforts and provide perspectives on how to achieve an improved adaptive and integrated approach to accommodate the ever changing societal and related basin management priorities. 

Primary Presenter: Frederick Wrona, Unversity of Calgary (frederickjohn.wrona@ucalgary.ca)

Authors:

Kelly Munkittrick, University of Calgary  (kelly.munkittrick@ucalgary.ca)