Dwight Boyd

9 Th Annual Grand River Watershed Water Forum
Exploring Grand – Erie Connections:
Flow, Quality and Ecology
Dwight Boyd, Senior Water Resources Engineer, GRCA
Sandra Cooke, Senior Water Quality Supervisor, GRCA
Warren Yerex, Supervisor Aquatic Services, GRCA (retired)

9 Th Annual Grand River Watershed Water Forum
Tracing the Flow

Grand River In Context to Great Lakes
The Upper Great Lakes Outlet at Lake Huron with a
drainage area of 599,000 km 2
Grand
River
Thames
River
Grand River Watershed
drainage area 6,800 km 2
Maumee
River
Lake Erie
Lake Erie Outlets at Niagara Falls with a
Direct Drainage 84,500 Figure kmfrom 2 Co-ordinated drainage Great Lakes area Physical of 683,000 Data km 1977
2

Grand River In Context to Great Lakes

Lake Erie – Grand River Flows
The Upper Great Lakes Outlet at Lake Huron mean
annual flow 5300 m 3 /s
1930’s drought
1960’s drought
Late 1990’s early 2000’s drought
Grand River Watershed
mean annual flow 80 m 3 /s
Negative local flow can result from evaporation losses of Lake Erie.
Even though Grand River flows make up only a small portion of the local
and over all flow to Lake Erie they are still important.
Mean annual local flow to
Lake Erie 600 m 3 /s
Lake Erie Outlets at Niagara Falls mean
annual flow 5900 m 3 /s

Lake Erie Volume – Grand River Flow Volume

Lake Erie Water Levels

Great Lakes Grand River Land Use
The Grand River watershed is
predominately rural with urban
centres in the central portion.
Note intense agriculture and population in southern Ontario
and the northeastern US impact the quantity and quality of
water delivered to the Great Lakes.

Great Lakes Grand River Population

Grand River Watershed – Linkage to Lake Erie
Understanding or conceptualizing linkages within the
watershed is the starting point to considering linkages to
Lake Erie and the Great Lakes in general.
Functional Units on the Landscape
Functional Linkages to the River
Functional River Reaches
Human Intervention or
influence on functional
processes.
Urbanization, drainage,
dams, nutrient load
River Reaches Connection to Lake Erie

Grand River - Surface Geology
• Underlying physics of the watershed.
• Geological characteristics will influence
what water enters the ground versus what
water runs off.
• There are three distinct areas in the Grand
River watershed.
1. northern till plains
2. central moraines and sand plains
3. southern clay plain
• The Grand River Fisheries Management
Plan uses these functional areas to help
guide fisheries management objectives.
• The geology affects water quality. Finer
materials in the clay and till plains are
easily suspended, they stay in suspended in
the water column. They may also carry
attached nutrient to the river.
• Porous soils in the central moraines require
high nutrient applications to be productive
farm lands. A portion of the applied
nutrients enter the groundwater system
and ultimately the river.

Grand River - Moraines
Moraines are some of the
thickest deposits in the
watershed
• The Orangeville, Paris and
Waterloo Moraines in the
Grand River Watershed
play a very important
hydrologic role.
• These moraines have a
rolling topography with
closed drainage systems.
• The water trapped on the
moraine helps to naturally
moderate floods and
facilitates infiltration to
the ground water system.

Grand River – Moraine Hummocky Topography
Photos from upper Blair – March 2003 G. Rungis
Depression storage example waterloo moraine

Hydrologic Response Units
Surface Geology
Land Cover
Moraine Closed Drainage
(Hummocky Topography)

Grand River – Functional Recharge Areas
• Results from hydrologic modeling
were used to estimate where recharge
is occurring across the watershed.
• These results help define functional
recharge units on the landscape. By
classifying these recharge the
significance of these functional
recharge units can be depicted.
1. 15% of the total area, and
produces 30% of the recharge
2. 30% of the total area, and
produces 60% of the recharge
3. 40% of the total area, and
produces 75% of the recharge
4. Remaining 60% of the total area
produces 25% of the recharge

Grand – Groundwater Linkages
Groundwater is linked back to the river and
the Great Lakes through three main linkages.
These include:
1.Groundwater discharge to water courses and
wetlands.
•Some of the strongest groundwater discharge
occurs
• along the Grand River south of Cambridge
to Brantford
• along the Nith River from New Hamburg to
Paris
• along the lower Whiteman's Creek
•On average as much as 5 to 6 m3/s of groundwater
flows into the river through these reaches providing
important fisheries habitat and assimilative capacity.
2.The other unseen linkage is through the
groundwater system to the Great lakes through the
bedrock or buried bedrock valleys. One example is
the Dundas bedrock valley.
3.Through human use, main example being
municipal water supplies that return water to the
river or Great Lakes through effluent discharges.

Grand River – Runoff Areas
• Results from hydrologic modeling were used
to estimate where runoff is occurring across
the watershed.
• These results help define functional runoff
units on the landscape. By classifying these
runoff units the significance of these
functional units can be depicted.
• High runoff area are associated with high
sediment deliver that has an implications to
water quality. These areas are also have
implications to flooding.
1. 10% of the total area, and produces 25%
of the runoff
2. 30% of the total area, and produces 60%
of the runoff
3. 45% of the total area, and produces 80%
of the runoff
4. Remaining 55% of the total area produces
20% of the runoff

Grand River – Runoff Linkages
• Runoff is delivered back to the river
primarily through streams and wetlands.
• Large portions of the watershed have
been drained. Municipal drains have
been implemented to help move water
off the landscape and to facilitate
agriculture.
• Tile drainage creates a direct link to
watercourses and can have an impact on
water quality and quantity in streams.
• The Rural Water Quality Program and the
Environmental Farm Plan help
landowners with best management
practices to improve and protect water
quality.
• Urban drainage modifies the hydrologic
regime of both surface and groundwater;
including flooding, stream erosion and
water quality components.
• The sub watershed planning and storm
water management programs strive to
comprehensively identify, maintain and
restore key hydrologic functions. The aim
is to maintain or improve water quality
of lands converted to urban land use.

Grand River – Runoff Linkages Flow Regulation
Lake Elevation (m)
1-Jan
16-Jan
31-Jan
15-Feb
2-Mar
17-Mar
1-Apr
16-Apr
1-May
16-May
31-May
15-Jun
30-Jun
15-Jul
30-Jul
14-Aug
29-Aug
13-Sep
28-Sep
13-Oct
28-Oct
12-Nov
27-Nov
12-Dec
27-Dec
Shand Dam Reservoir Elevation Plot 2008
426.0
424.0
422.0
420.0
418.0
416.0
414.0
412.0
410.0
408.0
Date
Shand Upper Buffer Shand Lower Buffer 2008
Of the 28 sewage treatment plants in
the Grand River Watershed 16
discharge to flow regulated reaches.
Three of the four municipal surface
water supplies are located on flow
regulate reaches.
Major reservoirs act to shift the water
budget, spring surpluses are
transferred to summer months.

Grand – Functional River Reaches
Once water is in the river system different types
of river reaches deliver the water to Lake Erie.
River reaches can be crudely categorized into
three types:
1. Estuary reach at the mouth of the river.
2. Backwater reach typically upstream of small
dams
3. Riffle/Recovery reach where pool, run and riffle
sequence are present and repeat themselves.
Natural processes in recovery reaches metabolize
nutrients and help cleanse water and provide
a diverse habitat
Backwater reaches typically are not healthy
reaches, sediment and nutrients accumulate in
these reaches. Natural processes don’t have the
ability to metabolize and cleanse the water.
Note the long backwater reaches in the southern river,
these reaches affect the quality of water reaching Lake
Erie and the dams at the downstream of these reaches
limit fishery migration and habitat diversity.
The ability of recovery reaches to metabolize nutrients
is analogous to the assimilative capacity of these types
of these reaches.

Functional Connection Lake Erie to the Grand River
Port Maitland Lake Erie Elevation (m)
1/30/08 0:00
1/30/08 3:00
1/30/08 6:00
1/30/08 9:00
1/30/08 12:00
1/30/08 15:00
1/30/08 18:00
1/30/08 21:00
1/31/08 0:00
177
Lake Erie at Port Maitland
January 29th 2008 Lake Surge Event
176.5
176
175.5
175
174.5
174
173.5
Date
Port Maitland Elevation (m) Dunnvile Dam Invert 1986 Event Critical Level
• Water at the mouth of the river is constantly fluctuating and exchanging with the Lake Erie.
• Occasionally these normal fluctuation and oscillations are disturbed by lake surges setup by
wind blowing down Lake Erie or across the lake.
• This surges can development in a matter of hours and push water back up the river flooding
wetlands and marshes and building located in the floodplain.
• Lake surges are part of a natural process and are important to the ecosystem
• Occasionally the lake surge is higher than the crest of Dunnville Dam.

Summary
1. Water flows down hill and what enters the river ends up in
Lake Erie
2. Managing lake issues takes a collective effort of various
technical disciplines, agencies, NGO’s and land owners
3. Dealing with water quality and quantity issues at their
source before water enters the Great Lake is fundamental
4. We need to better technical understand the functional
river reaches
5. Removing river barriers needs to be considered
6. Long term monitoring and research is the foundation to
understanding processes and issues

Credits and Data Sources
• Flow Data from Water Survey of Canada
• Great Lakes co-ordinated data of drainage areas, flows and volumes Chuck
Southam Boundary Waters Issues Unit Environment Canada
• Watershed boundaries Mike Shantz Boundary Waters Issues Unit Environmental
Canada
• Atlas Maps of the Great Lakes, Environment Canada and US Environmental
Protection Agency
• Geology and moraine information, funding bedrock valley exploration, Cam
Baker, Andy Bajr, Ontario Geological Survey
• Andrew Piggott Great Lakes recharge and groundwater information, Canadian
Centre for Inland Waters
• Update recharge-runoff maps S. Shifflett, GRCA
• T. Ryan, Rural Water Quality Program
• G. Rungis Subwatershed Planning and Stormwater Management Programs
• Maps Jeff Pitcher, GRCA