Mini cascading #waterfalls along #FellowsCreek - one of several tributaries that feed into the #KoksilahRiver. It's part of the Xwulqw’selu #Koksilah #Watershed on Southern #VancouverIsland.
Backroads access view. In Summer, it dries up in multiple areas.
Fellows Creek is part of the #TwinnedWatershedsProject, which is co-led by #CowichanWatershed Board, #CowichanTribes & #Halalt #FirstNation. It launched in 2021 to document the state of the watersheds & identify possibilities for improving their #ecological health. #Salmon are specifically being studied as part of this 5 year project because they are a #KeystoneSpecies that helps signal the health of a watershed.
The Xwulqw’selu & Chemainus watersheds are both located in the highly privatized, highly degraded landscape of southeast Vancouver Island & face similar issues. The #rivers and their #tributaries have been deeply impacted by land use & #ClimateChange. Unlike the neighbouring Quw’utsun (Cowichan) watershed, the Xwulqw’selu & Chemainus rivers have no lake to store water, which leaves them more vulnerable to drought & dangerously low flows.
Learn more about the Twinned Watersheds Project:
https://cowichanwatershedboard.ca/twinned-watershed
Greg Cocks 
![map and chart - (a) Detailed map of the study reach (shown within box in Figure 1a), with river kilometres (rkm) shown referring to distance downstream of the Coca Codo Sinclair (CCS) dam and diversion intake. (b) Subsurface geologic cross-section of the study reached from rkm 0 to 22 (annotated using field observations of the authors and borehole information from INECEL [Instituto Ecuatoriano de Electrificacion], 1992). Dashed line shows the riverbed profile as of 2 December 2022, 1,034 days after the failure of the Cascada San Rafael knickpoint. Prior to the loss of the knickpoint in February 2020, the accommodation space upstream of the Cascada San Rafael had entirely filled with sediment. Geologic units are abbreviated as volcaniclastic breccia (Br), cohesive volcaniclastic avalanche deposits (CoAv), loose volcaniclastic avalanche deposits (LoAv), ancient alluvial deposits (All), lacustrine sediments (Lac), debris-flow deposits (Deb, a thin deposit around rkm 8–8.5). Lava flow, recent alluvial deposits and Mesozoic bedrock are also shown.](https://files.techhub.social/media_attachments/files/111/807/148/396/895/626/original/73a36369a40e800f.jpg "map and chart - (a) Detailed map of the study reach (shown within box in Figure 1a), with river kilometres (rkm) shown referring to distance downstream of the Coca Codo Sinclair (CCS) dam and diversion intake. (b) Subsurface geologic cross-section of the study reached from rkm 0 to 22 (annotated using field observations of the authors and borehole information from INECEL [Instituto Ecuatoriano de Electrificacion], 1992). Dashed line shows the riverbed profile as of 2 December 2022, 1,034 days after the failure of the Cascada San Rafael knickpoint. Prior to the loss of the knickpoint in February 2020, the accommodation space upstream of the Cascada San Rafael had entirely filled with sediment. Geologic units are abbreviated as volcaniclastic breccia (Br), cohesive volcaniclastic avalanche deposits (CoAv), loose volcaniclastic avalanche deposits (LoAv), ancient alluvial deposits (All), lacustrine sediments (Lac), debris-flow deposits (Deb, a thin deposit around rkm 8–8.5). Lava flow, recent alluvial deposits and Mesozoic bedrock are also shown.")
