Undesired effects of draining the sloughs on Saskatchewan's farmland could be seen with greater frequency if the practice isn't reversed.
There were a number of factors that led to the flood situation in southeast Saskatchewan last spring and summer, one of which may have been the way wetlands are drained in the province. Ducks Unlimited Canada hosted a presentation as part of the Southeast Enviro and Safety Seminars last week at the Saskatchewan Energy Training Institute, dealing with the connection between the loss of wetlands and flooding.
Jason Neufeld, conservation program specialist for DUC, noted that wetlands on farmland are being drained in order to make way for high production from fields, but doing so could have an adverse effect on a number of environmental factors, from health of the soil to a greater frequency of flood events.
With the large decrease in wetlands, Neufeld said that what was at one time a one-in-50 or one-in-100-year flood event, which is what was experienced in the southeast last year, could become a one-in-five or one-in-10-year flood.
The province's wetlands act as a sponge, absorbing water so that it doesn't drain and accumulate downstream.
"In terms of water quality, reducing the impact of flooding, ultimately reducing the impact of drought (is where wetlands make a big difference,)" he said. "We are losing wetlands at an alarming rate."
Neufeld said that between 1974 and 2002, the Qu'Appelle Watershed was reduced by 90 per cent.
"It's a pretty dramatic landscape change."
One of the biggest reasons wetlands are decreasing is because of the greater stresses on farmers to make every square yard of their land productive. What was refrained in the presentation is that the market gives no incentive for farmers to keep wetlands.
Legislators, he said, need to step in with incentives to maintain those areas, rather than incentives to make them productive. DUC suggests a compensation formula for farmers, where they receive funding per acre of wetlands.
"We need to put policies in place and have incentive programs to make it financially equitable for those farmers to keep wetlands on their property," Neufeld said.
That will be rewarded with a number of benefits, as wetlands are good on soil, keeping nutrients in the ground, thereby maintaining or increasing land values. Draining a slough on a plot of land can wash away fertile soil, devaluing the land.
That should be enough incentive to keep the sloughs around. There is also the problem of convenience and the fact that fields are plotted by GPS and tractors are guided through that system now. When there is a slough in the way, it has to be steered around, and those aren't plotted by the GPS system.
