Description
Over the past thirty to fifty years, major rivers throughout the province of Alberta have been undergoing regular monthly sampling for a wide range of water quality parameters. Known as the Long-Term River Network (LTRN), this monitoring initiative has resulted in an extensive database of water quality information for the Province. Due to the broad time span and continuity of these data, they lend themselves particularly well to statistical trend assessment – a very useful way of examining changes in the health of a water body over time. Often indicative of human activities in the basin, trends in water quality parameters can be analysed for a variety of purposes, including the evaluation of human impacts on water quality, the development and assessment of watershed management initiatives, and the prediction of future conditions. The purpose of this report was to assess water quality conditions and trends in the North Saskatchewan River from 1977 to the end of 2002.