Government of Manitoba Long Term Water Quality Monitoring Program

The Government of Manitoba’s Long Term Water Quality Monitoring Program supports the Department’s mandate to provide services to protect and maintain the quality of Manitoba’s aquatic ecosystems by developing and implementing coherent long term water quality monitoring programs and activities that are responsive to present and future needs, issues and pressures. Water quality data are collected through grab samples. These samples are sent for laboratory analysis where they can be analyzed for a suite of 120 water quality variables including general chemistry, nutrients, major ions, metals, pesticides and pharmaceuticals/estrogens. The four site locations presented here are only a small subset of the 65 site locations monitored through the program. These four site locations represent four major river systems that flow into Lake Winnipeg. Samples are collected monthly from each of these four sites, with the exception of the Dauphin River, which is collected quarterly.

The data are used by the Government of Manitoba in a variety of ways to assess water quality conditions, through technical reports including trends, loads, and the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index, to name a few. The data are also used for water quality modelling and to inform policy decisions associated with Environment Act processes and Integrated Watershed Management Planning, to name a few. These data are also frequently requested and used externally by a number of stakeholders, consultants, academia and non-government organizations.

Citation

Government of Manitoba, Water Quality Management Section. 2022-04-30. "Government of Manitoba Long Term Water Quality Monitoring Program" (dataset). 4.0.0. DataStream. https://doi.org/10.25976/x5wn-0523.

Data Collection Information

Samples are collected at each of the sites from the center channel, or from the shore where the center channel is not possible. Samples are collected from the center channel using a weighted bridge sampler lowered to approximately 0.5 meter depth below the surface. Shoreline samples are collected using a pole sampler to reach as close to the center channel as possible, to a depth of 0.5 meters. Prior sample collection, sampling equipment is rinsed three times using water from that site. Samples are then transferred to sterile sample bottles provided by the analytical laboratory and preserved as per method protocol. Samples are sent to the analytical laboratory for analysis within recommended hold times. QA/QC samples are collected quarterly and submitted as trip and field blanks with routine samples to the analytical laboratory.

Manitoba recommends that total phosphorus (TP) and particulate phosphorus (PP) values, for the period between April 1, 2001 – March 31, 2009, be adjusted as per McCullough 2015. Raw, unadjusted TP values are reported here. It is recommended that these reported TP values be multiplied by a factor of 0.89. A detailed review of the rationale for this adjustment can be found in McCullough 2015. Please contact data provider for access to this report.

Attribution Licence (ODC-By) v1.0

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Data Disclaimer

Although we have taken all reasonable measures to ensure that the enclosed data are correct and free of errors, it is recommended that you review these data carefully in the context of your intended application.

API Access

curl -G https://api.datastream.org/v1/odata/v4/Records --data-urlencode "\\$filter=DOI eq '10.25976/x5wn-0523'" -H "x-api-key: PRIVATE-API-KEY"

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