Water quality networks

The map shows the locations of water quality network stations operated by the federal Water Quality Branch, Department of Fisheries and the Environment, and the provincial Water Quality Branches of Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. The federal and provincial monitoring programs provide natural water quality data, data on environmental contaminants, and interpretive information to a wide field of users in support of water resources management programs, pollution control and environmental assessment studies, legislation and research, and federal-provincial, interprovincial, and international agreements. The programs are designed essentially to detect and quantify water pollution, to determine water quality trends on a national and regional basis, and to measure the effectiveness of remedial pollution control measures on surface waters. In this way a better understanding will be achieved of the behaviour and fate of pollutants in the environment and their effects on physical, chemical, and biological systems. This increased knowledge will contribute to improved water resource planning. Initially, the International Hydrological Decade network consisted of about 200 sampling stations located on major rivers and streams across Canada. Besides providing data for industrial, municipal, and other government agencies, the network was designed to explore methods for predicting water quality conditions in streams, using existing and new data, and to study correlations of water quality, stream discharge, geological formations, and meteorology.

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• Form Descriptors
• Government and Politics
• Nature and Environment
• Science and Technology
• gauging stations
• hydrology
• water quality

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.	Water quality networks
Description A description of the dataset.	The map shows the locations of water quality network stations operated by the federal Water Quality Branch, Department of Fisheries and the Environment, and the provincial Water Quality Branches of Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. The federal and provincial monitoring programs provide natural water quality data, data on environmental contaminants, and interpretive information to a wide field of users in support of water resources management programs, pollution control and environmental assessment studies, legislation and research, and federal-provincial, interprovincial, and international agreements. The programs are designed essentially to detect and quantify water pollution, to determine water quality trends on a national and regional basis, and to measure the effectiveness of remedial pollution control measures on surface waters. In this way a better understanding will be achieved of the behaviour and fate of pollutants in the environment and their effects on physical, chemical, and biological systems. This increased knowledge will contribute to improved water resource planning. Initially, the International Hydrological Decade network consisted of about 200 sampling stations located on major rivers and streams across Canada. Besides providing data for industrial, municipal, and other government agencies, the network was designed to explore methods for predicting water quality conditions in streams, using existing and new data, and to study correlations of water quality, stream discharge, geological formations, and meteorology.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Form Descriptors Government and Politics Nature and Environment Science and Technology gauging stations hydrology water quality
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/b7202d46-ab66-56e6-aa42-63456240e175
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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