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For the past four years, Madawaska Kanu Centre’s office team have been tracking the river’s water quality. Once a month, unless the conditions are too icy, they measure parameters like pH levels, dissolved oxygen and transparency.

Nikki Kroetsch is a big believer in the power of community-based creek monitoring. Governments don’t have the capacity to monitor every little waterway, she says, which has led to many stewardship groups doing the work.

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

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.

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.  

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

Lake Winnipeg’s watershed spans nearly a million square kilometres across four Canadian provinces and four U.S. states. Each spring, when the snow melts across that vast territory, it carries a tsunami of phosphorus into the lake. And that’s a big problem. 

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. 

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.

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

More than a million people depend on Steph Neufeld. As a watershed specialist at EPCOR, she keeps a close eye on the North Saskatchewan River, which provides drinking water for the city of Edmonton and the surrounding region.

To the casual observer, these could be two ice fishers out for a day on the lake. But, instead of lowering a fishing rod into the hole, Mary and Rick lower in a temperature probe.

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.

Located just east of Sault Ste. Marie, Garden River First Nation sits along the St. Marys River — the major artery connecting Lake Superior to Lake Huron. Here, inland lakes, rivers and streams teem with chinook salmon, northern pike, walleye and more.

Situated on the past site of a cement factory and clay mining operation dating back to 1911, FortWhyte Alive is an urban nature centre located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, focused on environmental education. The relic mining pits have become five pit lakes which support healthy fish and waterfowl populations. School groups and the general public visit FortWhyte Alive to walk along the trail network, canoe on the lakes, birdwatch, and learn about the importance of healthy freshwater ecosystems.

The success of the Northwest Territories-wide community-based monitoring (NWT-wide CBM) program is a testament to the power of collaboration in action. Running for a decade now, the program has grown to include 21 communities that collect water quality data from over 40 monitoring sites across the territory.  

When the Canadian Freshwater Alliance (CFA) put out the call for water testing volunteers through its Lake Erie Guardians program, the response was overwhelming. Relaunched in 2021 in partnership with Water Rangers, the new monitoring initiative attracted hundreds of applications for the 50 spots available.

Each spring, volunteers take samples at more than 800 sites, stretching from Lake Erie up into the Boreal forest and from east of Ottawa all the way to the Manitoba border. Those samples are then sent back to Dorset to be analyzed for phosphorus, calcium and chloride levels.

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. 

Most days from March to November, Funk treks to one of the conservation authority’s 94 monitoring sites, where she collects data on everything from water temperatures to nutrient loads to aquatic bugs. Today, she’s helping bring that information out of hiding through Great Lakes DataStream.

Monitoring water quality in an area twice the size of New Brunswick is no small task. But size is just the first challenge for Ottawa Riverkeeper — a charitable organization that works to protect and improve the ecological health of the Ottawa River watershed.

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.

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.” 

The Lake Winnipeg Foundation (LWF) runs a phosphorus-focused community based monitoring network – a fantastic example of citizen science in action. Watch the video below to find out more from Mike Stainton, President of the LWF Board of Directors.

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. 

The Lake Winnipeg Community-Based Monitoring Network (LWCBMN) was launched in fall 2015. Supported by the Lake Winnipeg Foundation ’s Science Advisory Council, this growing network engages citizen volunteers to collect water samples across Manitoba using scientifically vetted protocols. Samples are then analyzed in a lab to measure phosphorus concentration and calculate the amount of phosphorus being exported off the landscape.

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.

Water 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 Armand Belanger of East Interlake Conservation District talks about the work his organization is doing to protect water quality in the Lake Winnipeg region.

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.

The Lesser Slave Watershed is a sub-basin of the much larger Athabasca Watershed.  There is a historical lack of data and monitoring within the basin.  However, the Lesser Slave Watershed Council, a Watershed Planning and Advisory Council that operates in the region, is working on changing that.

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.  

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

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

Earlier this summer DataStream Coordinator, Lindsay Day, had a chance to catch up with Valérie Courtois, Director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, while in Fort Good Hope/Rádeyįlįkóé, NWT. The Indigenous Leadership Initiative is promoting a federally funded, Indigenous-led National Indigenous Guardians Network in Canada. Through Guardian programs across the country, Indigenous communities are managing, monitoring and protecting the land, water and wildlife of ancestral lands according to cultural values and Indigenous law.

This week, my team at GW Solutions shared a collection of water datasets on Mackenzie DataStream that we had compiled for a project for the Peace River Regional District and Treaty 8 Tribal Association. As any scientist knows, it can take a lot of time and effort to organize and pull data together. This is why we are so pleased to be making this information openly accessible on Mackenzie DataStream, so that it can be of benefit to others.   

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.

Fort Nelson First Nation (FNFN) and Geoscience BC have signed an agreement which will see FNFN take over four hydrometric stations in its territory. The monitoring information gathered will be shared by FNFN on Mackenzie DataStream where it can be connected with other water monitoring data in the region.

Mackenzie DataStream provides open access to water quality data throughout the Mackenzie Basin, but why is it important to measure different dissolved metals and hydrocarbons? Check out the video above to learn more about the importance of measuring mercury and the impact it can have on an ecosystem.

We have some every exciting news (which might have already been given away in the title); Mackenzie DataStream now contains data from Alberta! That means that DataStream has data from three of the six jurisdictions that the Mackenzie Basin covers, with more data coming your way soon.

Earlier this month, the DataStream team travelled to Fredericton, New Brunswick to take part in the annual Canadian Environmental Grantmakers Network (CEGN) conference. During the event various important discussions were had on a wide array of topics including reforming Canada’s environmental laws, reconnecting with nature and protecting freshwater resources.

Community-Based Monitoring (CBM) is a fundamental part of collecting freshwater data in Canada. Mackenzie DataStream depends on the hard work of these CBM programs and their willingness to share their data online. However, many people around the country and the world do not know what CBM is or what it does. Tyler Carlson (Simon Fraser University), Alice Cohen (Acadia University) and Kat Hartwig (Living Lakes Canada) have put together “  A Snapshot of Community Based Water Monitoring in Canada ” to help educate people on CBM and answer some important questions surrounding the topic.