Prairie Biome
Includes the upland St. Denis National Wildlife Area (SDNWA; EC) of internally drained wetlands, cultivated fields and pasture; the semi-arid West Nose Creek groundwater recharge area; and the Kenaston/Brightwater Creek mesonet site of lowland level pasture and cultivated grassland. A soil and groundwater observatory along with flux towers is established here in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and NASA. Specialised soil moisture measurement arrays, cosmic ray soil moisture probes, a geological weighing lysimeter coupled to a network of groundwater observation wells, atmospheric measurements using large aperture scintillometer and Sonic Detection and Ranging (SODAR) and weather radar provide a unique concentration of measurements in a Canadian prairie environment. All sites are in the Saskatchewan River Basin (SRB); SDNWA has a 50 year archive.
WECC Observatories