Toronto and Region Source Protection Area – Water Balance Web Application Development

Kristina Anderson

In the proceedings of: GeoOttawa 2017: 70th Canadian Geotechnical Conference; 12th joint with IAH-CNC

Session: Source Water Protection

ABSTRACT: The CTC Source Protection Region (CTC SPR) is one of 19 Source Protection Regions and Areas in Ontario created under the Clean Water Act, 2006, comprising the jurisdictions of Credit Valley Conservation, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority. The approved Source Protection Plan (SPP) developed by the CTC SPR under the Clean Water Act, 2006 took effect December 31, 2015. One of the policies in the CTC SPP, Policy REC-1, pertains to the WHPA-Q2 - a type of Well Head Protection Area comprising the land around a municipal water well where changes in recharge could affect the quantity of water extractable from the well. York Region requested that TRCA implement Policy REC-1 on behalf of the Planning Approval Authority (lower tier municipalities). This policy, in effect, requires applicants to complete water balance assessments for future activities proposed under the Planning Act. It also requires that proponents demonstrate that their projects will maintain the estimated pre-development groundwater recharge. To assist with site-specific water balance assessments, TRCA has released maps of precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and recharge based on outputs from the numerical models developed under the York Region Tier 3 modeling exercise. This mapping has been available to consultants in electronic form upon request. To improve service delivery, TRCA decided to pursue releasing the mapping on a web platform that will allow proponents to determine the water balance components on their own. TRCA decided upon a web map application that will utilize a ‚Summary Widget tool™. The ‚Summary Widget™ tool requires that a single table to operate in the background, and as a result, TRCA staff combined the four model outputs representing different components of a water balance. The widget will then average all cells within a view extent for each of the water balance components and display summarized results on the widget panel.

Please include this code when submitting a data update: GEO2017_207

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