Brochure - 2014 Overview Highlights
State of the St. Lawrence Monitoring Program:
An essential tool of the St-Lawrence Action Plan
Printable version
The Overview 2014 innovates through its use of results integration and reporting approaches.
WHAT IS THE MONITORING OF THE STATE OF THE ST. LAWRENCE?
The State of the St. Lawrence Monitoring program was established in 2003 as part of the Canada-Quebec Agreement on the St. Lawrence. Since then, the partners have been pooling their expertise in their regular reports on the state and evolution of the St. Lawrence River. The results of environmental indicator monitoring are made available through the publication of a series of fact sheets, the holding of the Rendez-vous St. Lawrence event every three years and the publication of the Overview report every five years.
INNOVATION
Overview 2014
- Standardized visual signature
- Harmonized status classes
- More systematic use of criteria or reference thresholds
- Mapping information at local, sector and overall levels per indicator
- Integration of monitoring results in an overall finding
OVERALL FINDING 2014
A fragile balance
Of the common indicators that appeared in the 2003, 2008 and 2014 overviews, 67% have remained in the moderate and moderate-good categories.
From 2008 to 2014, 43% of the common indicators remained stable, while the rest split equally between deterioration and improvement.
Long description
This figure represents the evolution of the state of three indicators on a scale from poor to good. We see an improvement for the Striped Bass indicator (from poor to moderate-good), and a degradation for the Northern Gannet indicator (from good to moderate-poor) and the beluga indicator (from moderate-poor to poor).
HIGHLIGHTS 2014
According to the index of bacteriological and physicochemical quality (IQBP), water quality was in the moderate-good category in 2008-2010. However, the percentage of stations where IQBP was good or satisfactory decreased from 75% in 2003-2005 to 67% in 2008-2010.
In terms of toxic water contamination, the substances of most concern are PBDEs, and pharmaceuticals and personal care products.
Regarding the toxic contamination in sediments, the fluvial section between Montreal and Sorel has the largest numbers of most highly contaminated sediment sites and the highest number of substances exceeding the criteria. 
As for fish contamination in the fluvial lakes, only mercury in Walleyes and Northern Pikes in Lake Saint-Louis, and PBDEs and PCBs in White Suckers in Lake Saint-Pierre are still a concern.
Among the contaminants measured in Great Blue Heron eggs, only PBDEs slightly exceeded the criteria at three of the four colonies analyzed.
The St. Lawrence beluga population is still threatened, but the situation has worsened due to a decline in abundance, high mortality of newborns in 2008, 2010 and 2012, and a decrease in the proportion of immature belugas and newborns.
Northern Gannets are showing signs of difficulty with a loss of abundance and a significant decline in reproductive success. However, the concentrations of toxic contaminants in eggs are all below the criteria.
The shellfish waters of the Magdalen Islands and the Lower North Shore are of excellent quality. However, shellfish waters in the Gaspé Peninsula and Lower St. Lawrence are more strongly affected by anthropogenic bacterial contamination.
The average annual flows of 2008, 2009 and 2011 were very close to the historic 50th percentile (1933-2012); however, 2010 and 2012 were two years of low flows. In 2012, Great Lakes levels were close to the historical extreme lows, resulting in very low summer flows in the St. Lawrence. 
The fluvial section and Sorel islands have a diminished richness of benthic macroinvertebrates and a higher proportion of species tolerant to pollution.
The health status of fish communities has remained stable overall since 1995. However, in Lake Saint-Pierre, Yellow Perch haw suffered a major decline, mainly due to the degradation of its habitat.
The loss of wetlands due to direct human intervention declined sharply. However, the Boucherville Islands sector is still undergoing relative drying and the wetlands of Lake Saint-Pierre sector are bordered by a low proportion of natural environments.
Boucherville and Lake Saint-Pierre are the sectors most heavily affected by invasive plants. The most problematic species is the Common Reed.
Striped Bass is showing encouraging signs of recovery. Its distribution, rate of growth and abundance are improving. The natural reproduction of Striped Bass demonstrates that the species is in a favorable environment; this progress marks an important milestone for the species' recovery in the St. Lawrence River.
Among the oceanographic processes, several physical changes (milder, almost ice-free winters, early springs, and the warming of summer surface waters) have been observed in the Gulf over the past decade.
Changes in oceanographic processes have led to changes in the phytoplankton and zooplankton communities; these changes include early spring phytoplankton blooms and changes in the zooplankton community that favour Atlantic species to the detriment of Arctic species.
The increased warming of surface waters in summer increases the risk of toxic algal bloom.
Among the seabirds, the populations of Herring Gulls, Common Murres and Razorbills are in good shape, while the Atlantic Puffin population has been declining since 1993, and Caspian Terns are still very scarce.
PARTNERS
Government of Canada
- Environment Canada
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada
- Parks Canada
Government of Quebec
- Ministère du Développement durable, de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques
- Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs
Non-governmental organisation
- Stratégies Saint-Laurent