• Prairie
• St. Denis
• Brightwater Creek
• West Nose Creek

9. Kenaston / Brightwater Creek Mesonet Site, SK

The Kenaston flux tower within the Brightwater Creek Research Area (photo: Craig Smith)

• Observation sites located in central southern Saskatchewan within the moist mixed grassland ecoregion; 
  • Primarily cultivated with cereal crops, with areas of native grassland and pasture;
• Area covers much of the headwaters of the Brightwater Creek (basin area roughly 900 km²), which drains to the South Saskatchewan River.

History

• Established in 2007 as part of a National Agri-Environmental Standards Initiative (NAESI) research project;
  • Station network set up and operated by Environment Canada and University of Guelph;
  • The site is part of the CanEx-SM10 esperiment run in collaboration with NASA;
• Streamflow measurement on Brightwater Creek began through WSC in 1960.

Current Science Focus and Instrumentation

• Hydrological model and remote sensing validation;
  • Precipitation network design for validation of parameters such as soil moisture and surface fluxes at different spatial resolutions;
  • MESH/CLASS land surface hydrology model and ESA Soil Moisture and ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite;
  • Measurement of surface energy/mass fluxes, and field survey campaigns for spatial variability of soil moisture and snow water equivalent (SWE);
• One main flux tower for surface mass/energy balance measurements;
  • Profile observations of air temperature, humidity, wind speed, component radiation, and eddy covariance system; several alter shielded Geonor precipitation strain gauges;
  • Surface measurements of snow depth, soil moisture, precipitation;
• Soil moisture and precipitation networks;
  • Coarse network – 14 stations over 40 × 50 km² area; high density network – 24 stations over 10 × 10 km² area;
• Geological (deep well) weighing lysimeter for large scale soil moisture/evaporation measurement.

Other Resources and Further Information

• Data catalogue for Kenaston / Brightwater Creek
• Presentation on Kenaston / Brightwater Creek at CCRN's Targeted Process Studies Workshop, Hamilton, ON, September 12-13, 2013
• Document on research infrastructure at the site

For further information contact:

or,

Eddy covariance system in Canola field (photo: Craig Smith, 2010)