Manitouwabing Lake – State of the Basin Review 2018

Prepared for: Manitouwabing Lake Community Association: by Clark

Despite its importance, Manitouwabing Lake and other lakes in the area have not been studied in detail or well characterized with respect to many aspects of water quality. Nevertheless, the data that have been collected to this date allow us to conduct a preliminary assessment of the lake and its watershed and then go forward to make recommendations regarding future steps.

Watershed Influence

Manitouwabing Lake collects water from a large watershed through numerous inflows including the Manitouwabing River (Figure 1). These inflows mix within the lake and exit through the outflow at the south end of the lake. This outflow winds its way to Parry Sound through the Seguin River and ultimately into Georgian Bay.

A large watershed will increase the flushing rate for a lake and give the lake water quality characteristics that are driven by watershed processes more so than by local influences. Using the data in Table 1 we can calculate that the water in the lake is replaced 2.8 times per year or approximately every 4 months. This replacement rate will be, of course, higher during the spring and lower during drier months. Water quality measured in the lake near major inflows will have characteristics similar to those of the inflow and if the watershed characteristics are similar between inflows then this will lead to similar water quality throughout the lake. This is an important consideration because measured water quality is similar for several key parameters throughout Manitouwabing Lake which would indicate similar watershed characteristics for the major inflows to the lake.

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