Latest news

The Executive Director (ED) will play a pivotal role in leading DataStream at an exciting time of growth.

Do you collect water quality data in British Columbia or the Yukon? If YES, we want to work with you! 

The Environmental Data Manager will join DataStream at an exciting time as our user community grows across Canada. The Data Services Manager will be responsible for ensuring DataStream is responsive to this demand while offering high quality service to our existing community.

Pacific DataStream is live! Launching at the Environmental Flows Conference in Kelowna, our latest regional hub already holds millions of water quality data points from across British Columbia and the Yukon, all open and available for anyone to explore and download.  

This World Wetlands Day, we are featuring three organizations that are monitoring and protecting Canada’s wetlands.

Charlotte has a background in biology with research experience in biogeography. She is passionate about data science, open data and environmental education. Here is a short Q&A to introduce Charlotte

We got a lot done in 2023! Thank you to our partners, collaborators, and everyone monitoring their waters and sharing data!

In 2019, the Nation developed a restoration plan for the Skutik watershed. “We are looking to restore as closely as now possible to how the Peskotomuhkati lived in the territory pre-contact,” explains Meyer.

DataStream.org is designed to support the DataStream community and celebrate our collective impact. Whether you want to see who we are and what we do, are interested in sharing or using data, or want to learn about water monitoring, DataStream.org has everything you need.

To paint a clearer picture, he partnered with researchers from 13 different universities, launching the NSERC Canadian LakePulse Network in 2016. Over the next three summers, teams of grad students and post-doctoral fellows headed out to monitor lakes from Newfoundland to the Yukon.  

Meghan joined us after finishing her master's degree at the University of Waterloo. Meghan will be contributing to the continued development of DataStream by working with data contributors and users across the Great Lakes region and beyond.  

For nearly two decades, Atlantic Water Network has been helping 100+ water-monitoring organizations across Atlantic Canada track the health of their watersheds.

In May, the DataStream team gathered in Toronto for the 66th Annual Conference on Great Lakes Research, hosted by the International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR).

As part of our ongoing staff feature series, we are thrilled to profile DataStream’s Operations Coordinator, Lilian Tran!

In 2021, Living Lakes Canada launched the National Lake Blitz. The water stewardship organization had two goals: to ​help ​track the impact of climate change on Canada’s lakes and to make it easy for everyone to get involved in water monitoring, no matter their age or experience. 

Isotope data can be complex, and formatting isotope data can be a daunting task. That’s why we are so excited to release our new DataStream Guide: Best Practices for Reporting Isotope Data. The goal of the document is to support a consistent approach when handling isotope data.

In watersheds across Canada, temperatures are rising, rainfall patterns are shifting, and storms are hitting harder and more frequently. We’re seeing more droughts, floods, runoff and algal blooms. And the pace of climate change just keeps accelerating.

DataStream’s open access platform provides a place to share and access water quality data collected by diverse organizations across the country.

We want to hear from you! Take part in DataStream’s feedback survey 

The DataStream team continues to grow and we are thrilled to welcome Aislin Livingstone, Program Manager.

We got a lot done in 2022! Thank you to our partners, collaborators, and everyone monitoring their waters and sharing data!

This October, DataStream was fortunate to take part in the annual Wəlastəkw | fleuve Saint-Jean | St. John River Summit.

The DataStream team continues to grow and we are thrilled to welcome Nell Libera, Data Specialist.

Funding isn’t flowing: ending dry spell for freshwater action, is an op-ed published by the Hill Times by water monitoring leaders including Carolyn DuBois of DataStream.

to Lindsay Day, DataStream’s Program Manager, receives the Water’s Next Award in the Non-Government Leader category as part of the 13th annual Canadian Water Summit.

Today, Atlantic salmon are in hot water — literally and figuratively. Climate change and deforestation are raising the temperature of many watersheds in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. And that’s bad news for these cold-blooded creatures that already face a slew of other pressures.

Groundwater is a vitally important resource, one that is often overlooked in freshwater management. Despite its importance, in Canada we know relatively little about how groundwater behaves, its quality, or how the quality and quantity have changed over time. This is why groundwater quality is the next data type that DataStream is actively working on adding to our open data platform.

Carolyn DuBois, DataStream’s Executive Director, has been awarded a 2022 Report on Business magazine Changemakers award.  

We got a lot done in 2021! Thank you to our partners, collaborators, and everyone monitoring their waters and sharing data!

DataStream is excited to announce the beta version release of our new Custom Download tool! As the amount of data being shared on DataStream continues to grow, so too have requests for the ability to access specific subsets of data (e.g., all arsenic data in a given region) across multiple datasets. This tool is designed to do just that.

How can local efforts be optimized to restore fish habitat in Nova Scotia? This is the question that the Nova Scotia Salmon Association (NSSA)set out to try and answer when they began their Water Assessment Towards Ecological Recovery (W.A.T.E.R.) project.  The goal of this four-year project funded by DFO’s Nature Fund, which began in 2019, is to create Watershed Plans for 13 watersheds in Nova Scotia. Regional organizations can then follow these plans to maximize their habitat restoration efforts and ensure they are targeting key areas. 

We are delighted to announce that we are partnering with RBC through Tech for Nature, to help drive the expansion of DataStream.  DataStream, an open access platform for sharing water data, currently operates in three regions--the Mackenzie basin, Atlantic Canada, and the Lake Winnipeg basin. The RBC Tech for Nature donation from the RBC Foundation is a multi-year commitment that will allow DataStream to expand across the country. Beginning in the Great Lakes, our proven model will grow to support a nationwide, innovation ecosystem. This is the latest stage in a long-term, highly productive partnership between DataStream and RBC. RBC Foundation has played an integral role in DataStream’s growth by contributing to the design and development of the blockchain technology that is integrated with the platform.  Blockchain technology enables DataStream to bring a new level of data security and transparency to water monitoring data in Canada. DataStream’s use of blockchain technology provides a way for people to verify that the data they are accessing on the platform is the same data that was originally uploaded and that it hasn’t been altered or tampered with. Blockchain diagram from here: https://lakewinnipegdatastream.ca/en/article/blockchain-and-datastream RBC Tech for Nature supports new ideas, technologies, and partnerships to solve pressing environmental challenges. Learn more at rbc.com/techfornature.

As a water researcher at the University of Waterloo, Dr. Nandita Basu creates models to help answer big questions. How well do wetlands protect against algal blooms? Where are the biggest hotspots for agricultural runoff? How is climate change affecting water quality? DataStream promises to make life easier for Basu and her colleagues. In fall 2021, the release of the latest regional hub, Great Lakes DataStream, will bring together water quality datasets throughout the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Basin in a standardized format.

An exciting collaboration that began in the Great Lakes will make it easier for Water Rangers testers anywhere to share data on DataStream.  Water Rangers equip communities throughout Canada with the tools to actively monitor and manage their waters. Now, through a new hub-to-hub connection, anyone in the Water Rangers network can increase the visibility and impact of their data by sharing it on DataStream as well. 

With continued DataStream growth and expansion into the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence regions our team continues to grow too! We are thrilled to have Cristina Cismasu join us as the new Data Specialist based out of Quebec. 

DataStream’s Dive into Data webinar series is back for 2021! Following the success of last year’s sessions, the Dive into Data webinars will provide an opportunity to brush up on your data management skills, while connecting with other water data users.

What happens to water data after it has been collected by community monitoring groups? That is the driving question behind a Nova Scotia-focused research project that brought together academic, community and government voices. Led by Alice Cohen out of Acadia University in collaboration with Coastal Action and the Atlantic Water Network, and supported by the Change Lab Action Research Initiative (https://actionresearch.ca/), the research project included a workshop, interviews and online webinar, with a recent report summarizing the key findings.

DataStream’s new how-to video series provides guidance on using the open-access platform to publish and explore water monitoring data. The first four videos walk data stewards through various steps of the process, beginning with how to upload and update datasets:

A new online tool helps explain how water quality is measured and why it matters. The illustrated guide provides an introduction to some of the most important and commonly monitored aspects of water quality, including: physical properties, such as water clarity, pH and temperature chemical substances, like nutrients, metals, minerals and pollutants from human activity, and; biological characteristics, including coliform bacteria and chlorophyll

Recommendations that address how the federal government can strategically support community-based water monitoring (CBWM) efforts across Canada are now available in English and French. The Elevating Community-Based Water Monitoring in Canada documents were produced by The Gordon Foundation (who lead DataStream at the national level), Living Lakes Canada, and WWF-Canada, following a collaborative dialogue convened by the three organizations. 

2020 was a big year for us. Thanks to all who continued monitoring waters and getting the data out there!

With continued DataStream growth and expansion into the Lake Winnipeg watershed, our team continues to grow too! We are thrilled to have Mary Kruk join us as the new Water Data Specialist based out of Calgary, Alberta. 

The recently released WWF Canada 2020 Watershed Reports provide a national assessment of Canada’s freshwater. WWF Canada was able to efficiently draw on community based water monitoring (CBWM) data thanks to DataStream. Although the report shows the health of 60% of watersheds is unknown, there has been significant progress since the last assessment in 2017, with ten additional watersheds receiving a score. DataStream is designed to support communities driving the data-to-policy cycle so it is exciting to see that DataStream is playing a role in improving data access and putting community generated data on the map, so that it can be used in regional and national scale assessments and ultimately support decision-making.

DataStream’s visualization tool enables users to apply national water quality guidelines to datasets. Some key guidelines used by DataStream include the Canadian Water Quality Guidelines for the Protection of Aquatic Life  which serve as national standards set by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME). These guidelines provide recommended ranges for some of the physical, chemical and biological characteristics that are commonly monitored in rivers, lakes, and oceans.

For the Prince Edward Island Watershed Alliance (PEIWA) the benefits of being based in a small province are clear. “We can be really interconnected, and we can facilitate working together” explains Angela Banks, Project Manager at the Alliance, “when it comes to data management and equipment sharing and stuff like that it’s been really, really helpful to have that umbrella organization.” 

“Be the water bottle”. That’s the message from DataStream Data Specialist Patrick LeClair in this practical demonstration of what good data management looks like, taken from the recent Data Management Best Practices webinar.  Wondering what he could possibly mean?  Patrick uses two vastly different water samples, a cloudy concoction and a transparent liquid, to depict data while their containers - a hard to access box and an easily opened water bottle respectively - represent databases.

Technology has helped facilitate the growth of data sharing and the rise of open data – a movement that DataStream is proud to be part of. In this post we take a look at two important and complementary sets of guiding principles that underpin best practices when it comes to data stewardship and access.

DataStream’s new Upload Template (v2.0) makes it easier for data stewards to format data while allowing for new data types like sediment.

We are pleased to announce that DataStream now offers a bilingual site for sharing and accessing water quality data in Canada.   All website content is now available in French, across the Mackenzie DataStream, Atlantic DataStream, and Lake Winnipeg DataStream hubs.  

The creation of a Canada Water Agency, mandated by the federal government last year, is a unique opportunity to improve freshwater stewardship in this country. DataStream's Carolyn DuBois and Mathew McCandless of IISD Experimental Lakes Area contribute to ongoing discussions about the role of the agency.

We’re excited to launch a new Dive into Data webinar series to explore the (sometimes complicated) always exciting world of water data!

The publication of an open data standard is enabling valuable freshwater data to be organized, accessed, and shared in a harmonized way. This data standard underpins  DataStream, a growing online platform for sharing water data collected by Canada’s diverse water monitoring and research community.

A key element of freshwater conservation is knowing where to prioritize ecosystem restoration and preservation efforts. With the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC) Freshwater Conservation Blueprint this just got easier in eastern Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. 

This past winter, Atlantic Water Network’s (AWN) staff traveled throughout Atlantic Canada to deliver our “ From Water to Web ” workshop series, with a focus on data management. This workshop series followed the launch of Atlantic DataStream, an open access web portal for water quality data.

Community-based monitoring groups of all shapes and sizes are taking action to protect rivers, lakes and wetlands. These are the amazing people and initiatives that inspire us to do the work we do here at DataStream. In this video Keila Miller of the Souris and Area Branch of the Prince Edward Island Wildlife Federation talks about the work her organization is involved in to protect water and wildlife.

DataStream’s new watershed boundary layers cut back on guesswork and make it easier to explore data in the regions that matter to you. We’ve incorporated watershed map layers across all three platforms thanks to geospatial data available on Canada’sOpen Government Portal(open data for the win!).

Ensuring that water quality data on DataStream is easy to find, access, use and reuse is at the centre of our mission. For this reason, we have dedicated a lot of time exploring ways to integrate permanent identifiers into your datasets.

As DataStream continues to grow and evolve, so too does our team. We are thrilled to have Patrick LeClair joining us as Data Specialist Intern.

Happy Citizen Science Day! This April 13, we are celebrating the countless community-based monitoring groups and citizen scientists contributing their knowledge and energy to understanding the health of watersheds all across the country.

Since Atlantic DataStream went live in June 2018, organizations throughout the Atlantic Provinces have been eager to share one of their most precious pieces of information - their water quality datasets.  With the support of the New Brunswick Environmental Trust Fund (NB ETF), Atlantic Water Network has been working directly with twelve watershed groups in New Brunswick to digitize, format, and upload their water quality data. There are now nearly 70 years of water quality data available on Atlantic DataStream – a secure, open access platform that helps groups share and connect monitoring results in meaningful ways.  Atlantic Water Network works with several organizations throughout the province of New Brunswick, many of whom had decades worth of data, but not always in accessible forms. Even with today’s technology, we hear stories of groups who have years of valuable information that is only found in paper copies, and in some cases, stored away in filing cabinets or even shoe boxes! Atlantic DataStream now makes sharing data even easier than before, with a standardized format aligned with the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency’s WQX format and safely stored incorporating Blockchain technology.  

On November 27-28, a national discussion focused on identifying potential government supports for community-based water monitoring (CBWM) initiatives took place in Ottawa. More than 60 attendees, from across Canada, took part.

This summer, Atlantic DataStream spoke with Emma Wattie, Director of the Atlantic Water Network, about community-based water monitoring in Atlantic Canada.

Last week, DataStream joined over 100 freshwater organizations from across Canada for the 2018 Living Waters Rally. This year’s Rally took place near the shores of the Peticodiac River in Moncton, New Brunswick on the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq Peoples.

This summer, Atlantic DataStream spoke with Donald Killorn, Executive Director of Eastern Charlotte Waterways, about their water monitoring work in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick.

HALIFAX, Sept. 18, 2018 –  The nimble nature of community-based monitoring is being paired with the security of blockchain technology in Atlantic Canada to safeguard freshwater health.  

With Blockchain technology, DataStream is bringing a new level of data security and transparency to our open-data platform. This blockchain verification tool is currently being piloted on Atlantic DataStream. 

On day two of the Atlantic DataStream kick-off participants gathered at the Tidal Bore Lodge for some breakout sessions, networking and discussion about moving forward with Atlantic DataStream and Atlantic Water Network.

Atlantic DataStream kicked off on World Environment Day (June 5, 2018) with a two-day conference and celebration in Halifax, NS. More than 100 community-based water monitors joined us from across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. Join the Atlantic Water Network Community Hub Facebook Group to connect with conference attendees.

On June 20, DataStream won the 2018 Water’s Next award for Project & Technology at the Canadian Water Summit in Vancouver. DataStream is an open-access, online platform for sharing information about freshwater health in the Mackenzie Basin.  The Water’s Next Awards celebrate achievements in the water community from storm water management to innovation in drinking water solutions, web technologies, local stewardship and more. DataStream promotes public participation and trust in water stewardship decisions.

Atlantic DataStream’s regional partner, Community Based Environmental Monitoring Network, is rebranding its water work under the “Atlantic Water Network.” We’re excited to reveal their new logo and branding on Tuesday June 7 at the Atlantic DataStream Kickoff event in Halifax, NS.

Join us in Halifax on June 5-6 for a two-day conference and celebration kicking off Atlantic DataStream. Conference agenda and social media supports are being updated in real time at https://gordonfoundation.ca/resource/atlantic-datastream-kickoff-event-agenda/

Atlantic DataStream is live for beta testing! We’re excited to offer a sneak peak of this groundbreaking, open-access platform for sharing information about freshwater health

Through a diversity of monitoring, stewardship and guardian programs, communities across Canada are playing an increasingly important role in gathering critical information about the health of their watersheds. As interest in community-based water monitoring (CBWM) grows, investments to organize and implement community-driven initiatives are being made. However, to realize the full potential of these efforts, there is a need for strategic thinking, collaboration, and coordination, including at the national level.

One of the exciting things about DataStream is watching it grow and evolve over time. Not only are more datasets coming online, but we are continually making it better thanks to the thoughtful feedback we get from DataStream users. Now, by popular demand, you can filter your search for monitoring data within the sub-basins of the larger Mackenzie River Basin. This is so important because it allows communities to view and compare data across shared waterways.

As the DataStream platform continues to grow and evolve, so too does our team, and we are excited to announce that Lindsay Day is joining us as the new DataStream Coordinator. Lindsay will assist with the ongoing expansion of DataStream, and will work with communities in the Mackenzie River Basin to continually improve the DataStream platform.