Page 6 - HomeReadMe

The Citizen Science Oceanography

Program Station Plan

In 2015, the Program started with 10 patrols, including one off Victoria (not strictly within the
Strait of Georgia). In addition to patrols run directly by the PSF, some data was acquired in the
Ladysmith area by members of the Stz’uminus First Nation along with a trained technician,
and in Cowichan Bay from an observational program run by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The Victoria patrol was abandoned the following year in favour of a Galiano patrol in the
southern Strait. There was also some adjustment of station numbers and locations; in
particular several stations were added offshore of the north Arm of the Fraser to sample an
inflowing mid-depth boundary current there.

In 2019 the scope of the program was reduced to 7 patrols: Powell River, Baynes Sound, Gulf,
Sunshine Coast, Steveston, Galiano, and Irvine/Sechelt. The Sunshine Coast patrol in particular
provided coverage in the central Strait that had been lacking. A number of stations in the far
northern Strait were abandoned as this area is now being regularly sampled by the Hakai
Institute's observational program; integration of their data into this atlas began in 2020. In
2022, we also began adding stations in Burrard Inlet/Indian Arm, gathered by the Tsleil-
Waututh Nation as part of their ocean monitoring activities, to the Atlas, and in 2023 other
stations near Nanaimo, acquired by the Snuneymux Nation as part of their ocean monitoring
activities, hav e also been added.

Station names and locations for PSF and other stations for each year are shown below.

Not included in this atlas is information from Salish Sea surveys carried out 3 or 4 times a year
by Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientists at the Institute of Ocean Sciences. These surveys
consists of about 40 stations each in the Strait, and provide information on water properties
down to the bottom (i.e. at depths greater than the 150m limit for the CitSci program). Water
column temperatures and salinities only, over all depths, are also measured weekly since 1969
in the central Strait at the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges (CFMETR)
in exercise area WG north of Nanaimo. That data is publicly available, but only after about a
year or so after the time of observation. Further information on surface water properties at
daily time scales is available from systems installed by Ocean Networks Canada on vessels of
the BC ferries fleet and from observers at some BC lighthouses.