The Water Security Agency (WSA) is preparing to undertake snow water equivalent sampling, to get an understanding of the spring runoff potential for Saskatchewan in 2023.

Patrick Boyle, Spokesperson with the WSA, explained that their staff will be going and working with landowners to go into different sites across the province, "What we're doing is taking samples of snow and then trying to measure and understand the snow water equivalent or how much water is in that snow."  

Boyle said it's important because it helps to inform them as to what that snow might do, and how it will react in the landscape once it melts, and how much water is there and the reaction.

"What we're doing is measuring how much water is in that snow," he remarked, "We take a column with the device into a snow pack and try to measure and calculate what that snow-to-water equivalency would be, and then it helps us to contribute that data, that information, into our spring runoff potential and the map that we're going to see come out in March." 

He shared that it's really important information for a lot of RM's, towns, cities, villages, producers in the area, industry groups, or anyone in the province, really, operating there in springtime. It's important to know how the melt is going to come, where it's going to come, and are there going to be any issues or shortages?

WSA staff will be in the field at over a hundred sites later this month, and Boyle said that they do have an office in Weyburn, and he's confident there will be key pieces of data and information that will come out of Southeastern Saskatchewan.

This annual process is one of the many ways the WSA manages Saskatchewan's water resources to improve the quality of life.