Influence of glaciers on streamflow

The map shows the location of glaciers and ice caps and also indicates the rivers and the lakes, which are fed by a glacier (or an ice cap) meltwater. The purpose of this plate is to identify those streams which are fed by glacier meltwaters. Because of the scale of the map, many minor glaciers have not been shown and, hence, streams fed by such glaciers are not depicted as being glacier fed. The proportion of glacier-derived to non-glacier-derived water decreases as one goes downstream from the glaciers. The map shows many short streams in the Arctic islands and in the mountains of western Canada which are affected by glacier melt. However, the lower reaches of long glacier-fed streams, such as the Mackenzie and Columbia Rivers, are affected very little by the presence of glaciers within their catchments.The 20th century has witnessed the shrinking of many glaciers. The release of this water from storage has produced higher discharges from many glacier-fed streams than would be expected from precipitation alone. In catchments that are about 50 per cent ice covered, loss in ice volume from one year to the next can contribute as much as 20 per cent to the annual stream discharge. Even on a large river such as the Columbia at the Canada-United States border or the North Saskatchewan River near Edmonton, mean annual flow may have been increased by 2 to 4 per cent by reduction of ice volume within the catchments.

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• Form Descriptors
• Government and Politics
• Nature and Environment
• Science and Technology
• glaciers
• hydrology
• streamflow
• water level

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, 03:43 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 03:43 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Biota, Boundaries, Climatology Meteorology Atmosphere, Elevation, Environment
Title Title for the Dataset.	Influence of glaciers on streamflow
Description A description of the dataset.	The map shows the location of glaciers and ice caps and also indicates the rivers and the lakes, which are fed by a glacier (or an ice cap) meltwater. The purpose of this plate is to identify those streams which are fed by glacier meltwaters. Because of the scale of the map, many minor glaciers have not been shown and, hence, streams fed by such glaciers are not depicted as being glacier fed. The proportion of glacier-derived to non-glacier-derived water decreases as one goes downstream from the glaciers. The map shows many short streams in the Arctic islands and in the mountains of western Canada which are affected by glacier melt. However, the lower reaches of long glacier-fed streams, such as the Mackenzie and Columbia Rivers, are affected very little by the presence of glaciers within their catchments.The 20th century has witnessed the shrinking of many glaciers. The release of this water from storage has produced higher discharges from many glacier-fed streams than would be expected from precipitation alone. In catchments that are about 50 per cent ice covered, loss in ice volume from one year to the next can contribute as much as 20 per cent to the annual stream discharge. Even on a large river such as the Columbia at the Canada-United States border or the North Saskatchewan River near Edmonton, mean annual flow may have been increased by 2 to 4 per cent by reduction of ice volume within the catchments.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Form Descriptors Government and Politics Nature and Environment Science and Technology glaciers hydrology streamflow water level
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/c9b552a5-72a1-5ac2-866f-9a0818da147a
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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