Large lakes

The map shows the location of 565 lakes and reservoirs with a total lake area larger than 100 square kilometres or 38.6 square miles. A table shows the fifteen largest lakes ranked by their area with their maximum depth. An examination of inland hydrologic subsystems must stress the roles of lakes and lake systems. This is particularly true in Canada, where fresh water covers about 8 per cent of the surface area, an area greater than the province of Alberta, which comprises about 5 per cent of the Canadian landmass. The rate at which water is evaporated from large lake surfaces depends on the surface temperature of lakes. Although the hydraulic flow-through forces are the most significant in influencing the rate at which lakes lose water downstream on the surface, lake currents may also be established because of horizontal differences in lake water density. Wind-induced seiches have often caused substantial rapid fluctuations in lake levels, resulting in flooding and other water management problems in large lake systems. Prolonged wind "set-up" can increase lake water levels at one end of a lake causing similar problems. In the Great Lakes, for example Lake Erie, intense storms have produced changes as great as 2 metres in water levels along the shoreline. Lake scientists (limnologists) have attempted to classify lake types by using many different criteria. Some small northern lakes occupy basins made within ice sheets, but these are small and rather unstable lake types. Examples of lake formation by other than glacial action can be found in Canada, including the interesting meteorite crater containing Ungava Lake in Quebec. Relatively large lakes have been "created" through the damming of major river systems and the establishment of large reservoirs. Well-known examples are Lake Diefenbaker in Saskatchewan and Manicouagan in Quebec. Before conducting such projects, it is essential that all aspects of the environmental system be examined in order to anticipate properly the consequences of drastic alterations in a natural hydrologic system. An important factor is the impact of sedimentation. While Lake Diefenbaker has a projected life of 1000 years, smaller reservoirs can silt up almost completely well within the project design period, for example, Bassano Dam (in Alberta) on the Bow River.

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• Form Descriptors
• Government and Politics
• Nature and Environment
• Science and Technology
• hydrology
• lakes
• water balance

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, 03:42 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 03:42 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Biota, Boundaries, Climatology Meteorology Atmosphere, Elevation, Environment
Title Title for the Dataset.	Large lakes
Description A description of the dataset.	The map shows the location of 565 lakes and reservoirs with a total lake area larger than 100 square kilometres or 38.6 square miles. A table shows the fifteen largest lakes ranked by their area with their maximum depth. An examination of inland hydrologic subsystems must stress the roles of lakes and lake systems. This is particularly true in Canada, where fresh water covers about 8 per cent of the surface area, an area greater than the province of Alberta, which comprises about 5 per cent of the Canadian landmass. The rate at which water is evaporated from large lake surfaces depends on the surface temperature of lakes. Although the hydraulic flow-through forces are the most significant in influencing the rate at which lakes lose water downstream on the surface, lake currents may also be established because of horizontal differences in lake water density. Wind-induced seiches have often caused substantial rapid fluctuations in lake levels, resulting in flooding and other water management problems in large lake systems. Prolonged wind "set-up" can increase lake water levels at one end of a lake causing similar problems. In the Great Lakes, for example Lake Erie, intense storms have produced changes as great as 2 metres in water levels along the shoreline. Lake scientists (limnologists) have attempted to classify lake types by using many different criteria. Some small northern lakes occupy basins made within ice sheets, but these are small and rather unstable lake types. Examples of lake formation by other than glacial action can be found in Canada, including the interesting meteorite crater containing Ungava Lake in Quebec. Relatively large lakes have been "created" through the damming of major river systems and the establishment of large reservoirs. Well-known examples are Lake Diefenbaker in Saskatchewan and Manicouagan in Quebec. Before conducting such projects, it is essential that all aspects of the environmental system be examined in order to anticipate properly the consequences of drastic alterations in a natural hydrologic system. An important factor is the impact of sedimentation. While Lake Diefenbaker has a projected life of 1000 years, smaller reservoirs can silt up almost completely well within the project design period, for example, Bassano Dam (in Alberta) on the Bow River.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Form Descriptors Government and Politics Nature and Environment Science and Technology hydrology lakes water balance
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/e2ecb6a6-c9a7-525c-841a-0132c09295eb
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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