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Headwaters and Watersheds (scholarly references)

Burn, D. H. (2008). Climatic influences on streamflow timing in the headwaters of the Mackenzie River Basin. Journal of Hydrology, 352(1-2), 225-238.

The Mann-Kendall non-parametric test for trend is used to explore the trend behaviour of nine measures of the timing of runoff. The relationship between trends in timing measures and trends in meteorological variables are investigated using partial correlation analysis.

Clipperton, G. K., Koning, C. W., Locke, A. G., Mahoney, J. M., & Quazi, B. (2003). Instream flow needs determinations for the South Saskatchewan River basin, Alberta, Canada. Alberta Environment.

The Province of Alberta introduced a Water Management Policy for the South Saskatchewan River Basin (SSRB) that called for determination of the maximum amount of water that can be allocated for irrigation in the Red Deer, Bow, Oldman, and South Saskatchewan River subbasins. Implicit in this determination was the requirement to consider the needs for all other uses, including instream uses. To address this policy a Steering Committee with membership from several Government of Alberta departments was struck. This Steering Committee subsequently appointed a technical team to develop instream flow needs (IFN) determinations for all mainstem reaches in the SSRB. The Technical Team was comprised of staff from Alberta Environment and Alberta Sustainable Resource Development. They accessed expertise from within and outside the Government of Alberta when necessary to complete the tasks involved in developing the IFN determinations.

Dibike, Y., Eum, H. I., & Prowse, T. (2018). Modelling the Athabasca watershed snow response to a changing climateJournal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 15, 134-148.

Headwater streams provide important ecosystem services, including clean drinking water, habitat for aquatic life, and rapid processing and uptake of nutrients, which can reduce delivery of nitrogen and phosphorus to downstream coastal waters. Despite their importance to ecosystem functioning, very little research has addressed the extent to which headwater streams are buried beneath the land surface during urbanization.

Elmore, A. J., & Kaushal, S. S. (2008). Disappearing headwaters: patterns of stream burial due to urbanization. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 6(6), 308-312.

Gomi, T., Sidle, R. C., & Richardson, J. S. (2002). Understanding processes and downstream linkages of headwater systems: Headwaters differ from downstream reaches by their close coupling to hillslope processes, more temporal and spatial variation, and their need for different means of protection from land use. BioScience, 52(10), 905-916.

The Crown of the Continent is one of the premiere ecosystems in North America containing Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the Bob Marshall-Great Bear-Scapegoat Wilderness Complex in Montana, various Provincial Parks in British Columbia and Alberta, several national and state forest lands in the USA, and Crown Lands in Canada. The region is also the headwater source for three of the continent's great rivers: Columbia, Missouri and Saskatchewan that flow to the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, respectively. While the region has many remarkably pristine headwater streams and receiving rivers, there are many pending threats to water quality and quantity. One of the most urgent threats comes from the coal and gas fields in the northern part of the Crown of the Continent, where coal deposits are proposed for mountain-top removal and open-pit mining operations. This will have significant effects on the waters of the region, its native plants and animals and quality of life of the people.

Hauer, F. R., Stanford, J. A., & Lorang, M. S. (2007). Pattern and Process in Northern Rocky Mountain Headwaters: Ecological Linkages in the Headwaters of the Crown of the Continent 1. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 43(1), 104-117.

Jeffrey, W. W. (1965). Experimental watersheds in the Rocky Mountains, Alberta, Canada. International Association of Scientific Hydrology, Budapest, 66, 502-521.

Headwater streamflows in the Rocky Mountain foothills are the key to water availability in the Canadian Prairies. Headwater characteristics, however, have been and continue to be subject to major variability and change. Here, we identify various forms of change in the annual mean streamflow and timing of the annual peak and attempt to distinguish between the effects of multiple drivers using a generalized regression scheme. Our investigation shows that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is the main driver of significant monotonic trends and shifts in the central tendency of annual mean streamflow in major headwaters.

Nazemi, A., Wheater, H. S., Chun, K. P., Bonsal, B., & Mekonnen, M. (2017). Forms and drivers of annual streamflow variability in the headwaters of Canadian Prairies during the 20th century. Hydrological Processes, 31(1), 221-239.

Schneider, R., & Pendlebury, D. (2016). Conservation planning in Northwest Alberta. Edmonton, AB: The Northern Alberta Conservation Area Working Group.

Silins, U., Stone, M., Emelko, M. B., & Bladon, K. D. (2009). Sediment production following severe wildfire and post-fire salvage logging in the Rocky Mountain headwaters of the Oldman River Basin, Alberta. Catena, 79(3), 189-197.

In 2003, the Lost Creek fire burned 21,000 ha of nearly contiguous crown land forests in the headwater regions of the Oldman River Basin, Alberta. Seven small watersheds with various levels of land disturbance (burned, post-fire salvage logged, unburned) were instrumented and monitored for four years to measure stream discharge, sediment concentration, and sediment yields for a range of dominant flow periods characteristic of the region (baseflow, spring melt, and stormflow).

Surtees, J. D. (2018). Responsive Regulation of Off Highway Vehicle Use on Crown Land in Alberta Headwaters (Master's thesis, Law).

Uchida, T., Asano, Y., Onda, Y., & Miyata, S. (2005). Are headwaters just the sum of hillslopes? Hydrological Processes: An International Journal, 19(16), 3251-3261.

Weaver, J.L. (2013). Protecting and connecting headwater havens: Vital landscapes for vulnerable fish and wildlife Southern Canadian Rockies of Alberta. Toronto: Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.  Canadian Electronic Library/desLibris.

Yang, D., Shi, X., & Marsh, P. (2015). Variability and extreme of Mackenzie River daily discharge during 1973–2011Quaternary International, 380, 159-168.