64th webinar of the Hebd'Eau series entitled "Le malheureux constat du sous-entretien de la voirie forestière au Québec et ses effets sur l'eau" with Sylvain Jutras.
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Speaker : Sylvain Jutras, full professor in the Faculty of Forestry, Geography and Geomatics at Université Laval, teaches several courses covering hydrology concepts applied to forest and wetland environments. His areas of expertise are related to the effects of forest management on water, forest roads, snow measurement in forests, peatland hydrology, and hydrographic mapping using LiDAR data. Mr. Jutras is also very active in a watershed organization, the CAPSA, of which he has been president since 2009.
See the PPT presentation here »
Summary: For more than 12 years now, I have had the opportunity to participate in various public forums to discuss water issues in Quebec's forests. My message has remained the same for all this time: it is the management problems of public forestry roads that cause the greatest threats to the quality of water and aquatic environments. The problem seems to have only worsened in all this time, as there is still no regulatory framework requiring the maintenance of roads and culverts after their intensive and regular use. Since these abandoned roads may represent more than 70% of the 476,000 km of multi-use roads currently identified in Quebec, the potential problem of massive sedimentation of watercourses is acute and widespread throughout the province's watersheds. Contrary to other Canadian provinces where this laxity has never been tolerated, it seems that in Quebec, for more than 25 years now, the provincial and federal ministries that have the duty to protect aquatic environments have all had this issue in their blind spot; they know the consequences of the under-maintenance of forest roads, but they insist meticulously on explaining that this problem does not fall under their jurisdiction. It is high time that the protection of aquatic environments in Quebec's forests be taken seriously and that drastic measures be put in place to begin erosion prevention and the restoration of degraded ecosystems.
The presentation will be in French
