Watersheds Canada is pleased to be listed as a finalist for the Water Canada 2023 Awards in the “Conservation” category. This category recognizes a conservation project that uses new technology or a creative approach to effectively manage, conserve, and restore impacted areas. Our Natural Edge shoreline restoration program is a finalist for this category alongside Connected Sensors, and Hamilton Water’s Proactive Leak Detection Program.

The Natural Edge Program is taking steps to create and conserve healthy shorelands. The program removes barriers to action allowing landowners to easily restore their shoreland to reduce soil erosion, improve water quality, create vital wildlife habitat, and regulate water temperatures.

Using custom-built technology for iOS, personalized restoration plans are created outlining native plant species best suited for each property based on Canada’s hardiness zones and property site conditions. You can see Chloe making a planting plan in the photo!

Natural Edge provides landowners with resources needed to bring their shoreline back to a natural state while still making it functional for their lifestyle. This Program has been built to be easily shared with organizations all across Canada who gain access to the iOS App, online Admin System, Native Plant Database, and educational materials and resources.

In total, 34,000m of linear shoreline and 216,000m² of riparian habitat have been restored using 105,000 native plants across 6 provinces!