Lake Winnipeg Stewardship/Netley-Libau Wetlands Research

Solutions for local lake management problems

Two recent reports—Restoring the Health of Lake Winnipeg: Canada's Sixth Great Lake (PDF - 1.6 mb) by the Lake Winnipeg Implementation Committee, and Our Collective Responsibility: Reducing Nutrient Loading to Lake Winnipeg (PDF - 1.5 mb), by the Lake Winnipeg Stewardship Board—formed the basis for IISD's work in the Netley-Libau Marsh area of Lake Winnipeg.

The former report acknowledges the presence of the marsh as a world-class, but degraded coastal wetland at the mouth of the largest nutrient source to the lake, and the latter report specifically recommends that the Province of Manitoba review the effectiveness of constructed wetlands as a nutrient abatement strategy, and explore dredging, preferential flow, nutrient removal opportunities, harvesting and bio-gas generation for the future management of Lake Winnipeg.

IISD has addressed these research priorities, catalyzing the formation of an NSERC-funded research group in collaboration with the University of Manitoba and Ducks Unlimited to tackle outstanding scientific and engineering issues related to nutrient uptake through macrophyte and bio-energy production. The research provided suggestions on biomass harvesting and utilization methods. In addition, technologies for the conversion of harvested biomass to energy were examined. Research findings published in Biomass and Bioenergy[1] document the fundamental concept of revitalizing Netley-Libau Marsh as a multi-functional ecosystem for an international audience. Although the scientific and engineering research is well underway, the institutional logistics and financing for an ecological engineering project of this scale require substantial additional study. IISD therefore proposes to conduct an international survey of projects of a scale similar to that envisioned for the Netley-Libau wetlands complex. IISD will review:

[1] Nutrient removal and bioenergy production from Netley-Libau Marsh at Lake Winnipeg through annual biomass harvesting. Biomass and Bioenergy, Volume 30, Issue 6, June 2006. Pages 529-536 N. Cicek, S. Lambert, H.D.Venema, K.R.Snelgrove, E.L.Bibeau and R.Grosshans