Impacts of declining water levels on the quantity of fish habitat in coastal wetlands of eastern Georgian Bay, Lake Huron

There are >3,700 coastal wetlands along 4,500 km of eastern Georgian Bay (GB), providing critical spawning and nursery habitat for migratory fish of Lake Huron. Sustained low water levels since 1999 have led to the loss of fish habitat due to severance of wetlands from GB. We estimate (1) the amount of fish habitat that has already been lost between the historic high water level (177.5 m asl) and current levels (176.11 m asl) using a …