Appendix B - Definitions

Areas of Natural or Scientific Interest (ANSI): means areas of land and water containing natural landscapes or features that have been identified as having life science or earth science values related to protection, scientific study, or education.

Basin Study: A study consisting of the collection of data pertaining to one basin. This information would normally be used for the preparation of a watershed management plan.

Conservation: Wise use. This phrase is not intended to be restricted narrowly to preservation or to management, but may include either or both.

Conservation Services: Refers to all services that the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority provides to private and municipal landowners.

Cumulative Impacts: Long-term impacts that increase by successive additions, although such additions might be minor individually.

Community Relations: A broad concept is intended, including public relations, information, education, promotions and fund raising.

Diversity: Intended to include both the maintenance of different plant and animal types, as well as the genetic differences that are important in sustaining viable populations of any species.

Ecological Approach to Land-Use Planning: An ecological approach to land-use planning simply means taking a holistic approach to managing human activities, rather than traditional, piecemeal management.

Education: In the broadest sense, education is used to mean more than formal education. As well as repeated instruction on a particular theme, we intend that this term include the provision of information, and increased public awareness.

Environmentally Significant Areas (ESAs): These are areas that have been evaluated as Class I through IV wetlands (based on the Environment Canada and Ministry of Natural Resources Evaluation System for southern Ontario), or have been identified as Areas of Scientific Interest.

Fish*: means fish, shellfish, crustaceans, and marine animals, as all stages of their life cycles.

Fish Habitat*: means the spawning grounds and nursery, rearing, food supply, and migration areas on which fish depend directly or indirectly in order to carry out their life processes.

Floodplain*: The area, usually low lands, adjoining a watercourse, and which has been or may be subject to flooding hazards.

Flooding Hazards*: means the inundation, under the conditions specified below, of areas adjacent to a shoreline or a river or stream system and not ordinarily covered by water:

a) Along the shoreline of the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence River System and large inland lakes, the flooding hazard limit is based on the 100 year flood level plus an allowance for wave uprush and other water related hazards.

b) Along river and stream systems, the flooding hazard limit is the greater of:

1. the flood resulting from the rainfall actually experienced during a major storm such as the Hurricane Hazel storm (1954) or the Timmins Storm (1961), transposed over a specific watershed and combined with the local conditions, where evidence suggests that the storm event could have potentially occurred over watersheds in the general area;

2. the hundred year flood; or

3. a flood which is greater that 1) or 2) which was actually experienced in a particular watershed or portion thereof as a result of ice jams and which has been approved as the standard for that specific area by the Minister of Natural Resources.

Goals: The general, long-term purposes to which the Authority aspires.

Groundwater: The water contained within the ground that supplies wells and springs, and that helps sustain our surface waters.

Hazardous Lands*: means property or lands that could be unsafe for development due to naturally occurring processes, generally considered to include the furthest landward limit of the flooding, erosion or dynamic beach hazard limits.

Land Owner: An owner of title to land, which includes limited rights to use that land. Land ownership does not imply the right to alter it in any way desired, however, as all land is ultimately held of the Crown.

Management: The judicious use of various means to accomplish a specific end.

Natural Heritage features and areas*: means features and areas, such as significant wetlands, fish habitat, significant woodlands south and east of the Canadian Shield, significant valleylands south and east of the Canadian Shield, significant portions of the habitat or endangered and threatened species, significant wildlife habitat, and significant areas of natural and scientific interest, which are important for their environmental and social values as a legacy of the natural landscapes of an area.

Objectives: Results that can be measured.

Open Space: Lands that are retained in an open, green state. These lands may or may not be maintained as natural areas, but could include Conservation Areas, municipal parks, or green belts along stream or river corridors.

Partner Agencies: Other government agencies that share common concerns with the Authority. These may include, but are not limited to the following: the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, the Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Training, Environment Canada - Canadian Parks Service, the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, all Health Units and School Boards, as well as cottage associations, Ducks Unlimited, Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Kingston Field Naturalists.

Participants: To include watershed residents, tourists, corporations, interest groups, the development industry, and the general public. It is important to stress that there are non- residents using the watershed whom we want to reach as well.

Plan Input and Review: A two-part Authority program, which involves the Authority identifying any concerns and make recommendations to the municipality or the developer before the proposal is actually made. Review of proposals to change land use (such as severance applications, minor variances, zoning by-law and official plan amendments, and applications for subdivision) provides an opportunity for the Authority to identify concerns and make recommendations to its member municipalities. Both parts of the program are important, and the Authority's involvement at the draft stage helps to speed processing and ensure acceptable applications at the later official review stage.

Priorities: The planned actions, measures, or programs to achieve a desired end.

Public: This term is intended to include all residents of the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority, but also the tourists, the summer residents, and the other travellers and visitors to the area.

Regional Diversity: refers to physiographic and social aspects of our regional diversity.

Representative Features: These may include varied features of the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority watershed, primarily natural but may include cultural, that are representative of the watershed as a whole. They might include such things as a broad area of Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Forest.

Resources: This term is used to mean a natural value in a very broad sense. By this we mean that the lands and forests, the waters and animals, are not simply a commodity, but are a basic element of life. They are of economic value, but they are just as importantly of intrinsic value to the quality of life within the watershed. As well, we include an area's attributes as part of its resources: scenic views, forested lands, and other attributes of an area are considered to be resources.

Stewardship: The individual or group's responsibility to manage their property with proper regard to the rights and common natural heritage of others, including the Crown, and to the fundamental value of the natural ecosystem.

Sustainable Use/Development: Meaans a use or development that can be sustained by the environment without significantly impairing its natural values. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Threatened Species*: means any native species that is at risk of becoming endangered through all or a portion of its Ontario range if the limiting factors are not reversed.

Unique Features: These may include varied features (natural or cultural) of the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority watershed that are of particular interest. Such features may include a meteor crater, or a historical site or structure.

Valleylands*: means a natural area that occurs in a valley or other landform depression that has water flowing through or standing for some period of the year.

Vision: Our Vision, as expressed in our Vision Statement, is a future-oriented statement, intended to describe our watershed as we would like it to be in twenty years.

Watercourse refers to flowing water, though not necessarily continuous, within a channel possessing bed and banks that usually discharges into some other stream or body of water.

Watershed: This term has two meanings in the Conservation Strategy. The first meaning is that of all lands drained by a river or stream and its tributaries, and defined by a height of land; in other words, a basin. The second meaning is that of jurisdiction. Conservation Authority "watersheds" often include more than one true watershed: that of the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority includes 9 major watersheds.

Watershed Management Plan: A management plan for one basin or watershed.

Wave Uprush*: means the rush of water up onto a shoreline or structure following the breaking of a wave; the limit of wave uprush is the point of furthest landward rush of water onto the shoreline.

Wetlands*: means lands that are seasonally or permanently covered by shallow water, as well as lands where the water table is close to or at the surface. In either case the presence of abundant water has caused the formation of hydric soils and has favoured the dominance of either hydrophytic plants or water tolerant plants. The four major types of wetlands are swamps, marshes, bogs and fens. Periodically soaked or wet lands being used for agricultural purposes which no longer exhibit wetland characteristics are not considered to be wetlands for the purposes of this definition.

*Provincial Policy Statement, Revised February 1, 1997

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