Designing Climate and Water Smart Wetland Restoration Scenarios in Canada's Agricultural Landscapes

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The last few decades have seen an increase in the frequency and intensity of algal blooms, both in large lakes like Lake Erie and Winnipeg, as well as in smaller lakes and reservoirs across Canada and globally. These occur in response to excess nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, that enter our waterways from agricultural and urban land uses. Wetland restoration is a key nature-based solution (NbS) to filter excess nutrients and protect downstream waters. Wetlands also sequester carbon, and are considered to be a key NbS to achieve net-zero emission goals. However, wetlands can be potential sources of greenhouse gasses. Moreover, wetland restoration in agricultural landscapes requires conversion of cropland that might not always be economically viable. Knowledge gaps remain on the benefits and trade-offs of wetland restoration as a nature-based solution. The overarching goal of our project is to evaluate the potential of wetland restoration as a tool for improving water quality and reducing GHG emissions across the prairies and the Lake Erie Basin, which are two agriculturally intensive regions across Canada with extensive wetland loss and severe water quality degradation. The project will build on an existing partnership with Ducks Unlimited Canada's Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research who have been collecting water quality and GHG data in wetlands in Ontario and the prairies. We will complement existing efforts with targeted field data collection, and use a combination of remote sensing and process modeling to develop wetland restoration "blueprints" across Ontario and the prairies. The resulting restoration blueprints will help decision-makers to determine how to achieve maximum benefits when utilizing wetland restoration as a nature-based solution for improving water quality and mitigating climate and can be used to prioritize action on wetland restoration across Canada.