Lake Diefenbaker, located within the South Saskatchewan River Basin, is used to divert water into the Qu’Appelle River Basin – an interbasin transfer.  In response to increasing demands for water in Southeastern SK, the province decided to investigate the feasibility of increasing summer flows in the Qu’Appelle River from the Qu’Appelle Dam to Buffalo Pound Lake -- a distance of 97 km.  The province wanted to increase flows from 4 m3/s to more than 17 m3/s using natural channel design.  Given the extremely flat slope, high sinuosity and high rates of bank erosion, a detailed geomorphic assessment of the 97 km reach was carried out 

The assessment included bedload sampling and suspending sediment sampling to calibrate HEC-RAS, FLOW-SED POWER-SED and other sediment transport models.  The assessment included the analysis of data from four gauging stations as well as the development of three mini-regional curves for concept level channel sizing.  In the 97 km of assessment there were 22 reaches identified with significantly different boundary conditions.  A detailed sediment transport analysis was performed on all reaches.   The sediment transport analysis was field-based and computer aided and looked at scour depth, substrate of the riffles, bank material, bank erosion prediction, aquatic vegetation, sediment transport competency and capacity.   The geomorphic sediment transport survey data was collected using RTK Survey Equipment. This assessment utilized a detailed Bank Erodibility Hazard Index (BEHI) and Near Bank Shear Stress (NBS) to predict the sediment transport from bank erosion and in-channel sources. The project created a 300+ page master plan with 1400 pages of appendices. The Master Plan specified where stabilization techniques could be applied to the existing channel and where the construction of a new channel was needed