This guide is about things you can do at home and on individual properties to help keep our waterways healthy. The biggest idea (after stopping or minimizing the use of fertilizers and ecocides*) is that reducing the amount of runoff is key to maintaining and improving water quality and health in our lakes, rivers and streams. Most of this guide is about ways to do that.

Why do we want to minimize runoff?

In our modern world, we think that water running off surfaces almost every time it rains is a natural thing — but it’s not!

If we minimize the amount of runoff we also minimize the amounts of pollutants that reach our waterbodies. [Except from: Alberta Clean Runoff Action Guide 2020, Toolbox for Property Owners, Introduction.]

Development of this guide was a collaborative effort of the Pigeon Lake Watershed Association and the Alberta Low Impact Development Partnership.

Each section of the guide is available for download