River systems of Canada

The map shows the location of rivers, glaciers and the six physiographic regions of Canada. Rivers serve as the natural drainage channels for surface waters. The network formed by river systems receives water from two main sources: runoff and base flow. Runoff is that part of precipitation which flows toward the river on the ground surface (surface runoff) or within the soil (subsurface runoff or interflow). Evapotranspiration and flow to the groundwater are excluded. To understand the evolution of the pattern of river systems seen on the map it is necessary to assume that the physical processes which are in evidence today are the same as those which have operated throughout the earth's history. Given this assumption of continuity, it becomes apparent that river evolution may be attributed to a number of factors, including changing climate and precipitation, tilting of the earth's surface, glaciation and other geologic processes, ground cover, and man's activities. Possibly the most important factor is the geology of the area over which rivers flow. In Canada, glaciation has had a profound influence on river morphology because of the removal of soft rocks, creation of filled valleys, influence of glacier remains (eskers, moraines), and the overall topographic change resulting from glaciation. A drainage basin, often called a watershed or a catchment, is defined as that entire area which has a common outlet for its surface runoff. As a river system matures, smaller basins are incorporated into fewer but larger basins.

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• Form Descriptors
• Government and Politics
• Nature and Environment
• Science and Technology
• hydrography
• hydrology
• lakes
• rivers

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (54%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 03:44 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 03:44 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Biota, Boundaries, Climatology Meteorology Atmosphere, Elevation, Environment
Title Title for the Dataset.	River systems of Canada
Description A description of the dataset.	The map shows the location of rivers, glaciers and the six physiographic regions of Canada. Rivers serve as the natural drainage channels for surface waters. The network formed by river systems receives water from two main sources: runoff and base flow. Runoff is that part of precipitation which flows toward the river on the ground surface (surface runoff) or within the soil (subsurface runoff or interflow). Evapotranspiration and flow to the groundwater are excluded. To understand the evolution of the pattern of river systems seen on the map it is necessary to assume that the physical processes which are in evidence today are the same as those which have operated throughout the earth's history. Given this assumption of continuity, it becomes apparent that river evolution may be attributed to a number of factors, including changing climate and precipitation, tilting of the earth's surface, glaciation and other geologic processes, ground cover, and man's activities. Possibly the most important factor is the geology of the area over which rivers flow. In Canada, glaciation has had a profound influence on river morphology because of the removal of soft rocks, creation of filled valleys, influence of glacier remains (eskers, moraines), and the overall topographic change resulting from glaciation. A drainage basin, often called a watershed or a catchment, is defined as that entire area which has a common outlet for its surface runoff. As a river system matures, smaller basins are incorporated into fewer but larger basins.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Form Descriptors Government and Politics Nature and Environment Science and Technology hydrography hydrology lakes rivers
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	1978-01-01
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/b022f289-7018-5ab5-b906-14c250fd89cb
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Natural Resources Canada | Ressources naturelles Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.	[email protected]
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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