Canada Water Act annual report for 2020 to 2021: chapter 3

3 Freshwater monitoring

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), in collaboration with provincial and territorial governments and others,Footnote 2 conducted 3 types of monitoring in fresh water across Canada to obtain information on:

3.1 Water quantity monitoring

The National Hydrometric Program (NHP), a partnership between federal, provincial and territorial governments, is responsible for providing critical hydrometric data, information, and knowledge that Canadians and their institutions need to make informed water management decisions to protect and provide stewardship of fresh water in Canada. These data are available on ECCC’s Wateroffice website. The Water Survey of Canada, which is part of ECCC’s National Hydrological Service (NHS), is the federal partner and primary operator of the NHP network in Canada.

The NHP is co-managed by the National Administrators Table (NAT) and the NHP Coordinators’ Committee, both consisting of members responsible for the administration of hydrometric monitoring agreements in each province or territory and 1 national administrator designated by Canada. Both groups met regularly throughout 2020-2021 to discuss program issues. Regular input from both groups and an annual survey of NAT partner satisfaction provided valuable input on program operations, documentation and dissemination practices, and available training resources for the NHP.

ECCC has hydrometric agreements with 9 provinces, Yukon and Northwest Territories, and with Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada for Nunavut for the collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of water quantity data. These agreements have been administered cooperatively since 1975 and, with the exception of Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan, have been renewed since 2008. In addition, NHS is a co-signee of the annual Memorandum of Agreement on Water with the province of Prince Edward Island. The intent of the Agreement is to coordinate the efforts of the provincial and federal governments to monitor the health of aquatic ecosystems, including water quantity, on PEI to ensure that the sustainability of the province’s water resources is maintained for environmental, social and economic benefit.

Agreements for specific water programs require participating governments to specify the amount of funding each will pay and the information and expertise they will provide, in agreed ratios. For ongoing activities such as the hydrometric monitoring agreements with each provincial and territorial government, cost-sharing is in accordance with each party’s need for the data.

3.1.1 National hydrometric monitoring network

During 2020-2021, there were no significant changes to the size of the national hydrometric monitoring network, but a number of small adjustments were made. The national hydrometric monitoring network of the NHP in Canada consisted of 2826 hydrometric monitoring stations (see Table 1 and Figure 1).

Figure 1: National Hydrometric Monitoring Network

Long description

Figure 1 is a map of Canada indicating the location of 2826 hydrometric monitoring stations. (See Table 1)

During this period, ECCC operated 2263 of these hydrometric stations. Of the ECCC-operated stations, 1096 were fully or partially federally funded.

The remaining stations were operated by ECCC on behalf of provincial and territorial governments or a third-party interest, and cost-sharing was based on specific needs and requirements (see Table 1). In Quebec, the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and the Fight against Climate Change operated 227 stations, some funded in whole or in part by the Government of Canada.

Table 1: Stations within the National Hydrometric Monitoring Network
Province/Territorya ECCC-operated (by cost arrangement) Non-ECCC-operated (various cost arrangements) Total by province or territory
Federal Cost-sharedb Province/ Territory Third party
Alberta 81 158 161 38 18 456
British Columbia 49 184 213 0 6 452
Manitoba 20 90 108 5 174 397
New Brunswick 14 16 27c 7 4 68
Newfoundland & Labrador 16 32 64 1 0 113
Nova Scotia 10 6 15 0 0 31
Northwest Territories 42 23 21 18 0 104
Nunavut 6 2 13 4 0 25
Ontario 78 65 326 88 7 564
Prince Edward Island 0 5 5 0 0 10
Quebec 16 0 0 0 227 243
Saskatchewan 95 51 11 7 127 291
Yukon 9 24 28 11 0 72
Total 436 656 992 179 563 2826

a Hydrometric monitoring stations located within the boundaries of each province, no matter which office operates them.

b Stations that are partially funded by the federal government, provincial/territorial governments, and third parties. The cost-share ratio varies by station.

c Nine of these stations are groundwater stations.

Note: The network also includes a small number of designated International Gauging Stations located in the United States that are not included here as they support International Joint Commission activities not covered under the CWA.

In 2020-2021, only 28 cableways were addressed throughout the country as COVID-19 had major impacts on the national work plan delivery. With the previous year’s repair, a total of 183 cableways have been either repaired, repurposed or replaced with alternative technologies through renewal investment. At the beginning of the project in July 2018, there were 350 cableways that needed to be addressed. Therefore, 52% of construction work on cableways is completed.

COVID-19 has not only impacted the scheduled work on cableways, but created delays for the entire infrastructure workplan, including decommissioning and stilling wells projects. Approximately 40% of the 200 infrastructure projects planned for 2020-2021 had to be postponed to subsequent years. It is important to note that none of the 15 projects planned for the Northern region have been addressed. In total, 118 infrastructure projects were completed, including work on cableways.

3.1.2 Data dissemination

After-hour support was provided during the 2020 spring freshet to ensure real-time hydrometric data were available 24/7 during high water periods.

The uploading process was automated to retrieve approved daily data from the data production system and upload them into the National Archive database. This new process enabled the data uploading on a daily basis and greatly improved the efficiency of data publishing.

The daily data (2013 to 2020) of the Quebec-operated hydrometric stations were updated in the National Archive database.

The newly uploaded data facilitate the development of the Canada-wide Water Quantity Indicator under the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators program.

The offline historical databases of the National Archive were released 4 times: April 2020, July 2020, October 2020, and January 2021.

3.2 Freshwater quality monitoring

Freshwater quality monitoring has been a core ECCC program since the Department’s inception in the early 1970s. The Department’s monitoring and surveillance activities are critical for assessing and reporting on water quality status and trends, in addition to fulfilling federal domestic and international commitments and legislative obligations. Data are also used to support the water quality indicator developed under the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators program (see Section 4).

Water quality monitoring efforts were significantly impacted over 2020-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with field activities limited to varying degrees across Canada. Continuity in monitoring opportunities was facilitated, in part, through leveraging of partnerships with provinces and territories. Future reporting on 2020-2021 data will need to account for these changes.

Much of the program’s monitoring is carried out through federal-provincial/territorial agreements, ensuring cost-effective and non-duplicative program delivery. ECCC has water quality monitoring agreements with British Columbia, Yukon, Manitoba, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The objectives of the federal-provincial/territorial water quality monitoring agreements are to:

The Long-Term Freshwater Quality Monitoring Network consists of 171 federal, federal-provincial and federal-territorial sampling sites across Canada (see Figure 2). The map also displays 35 sites that are monitored in Canada-US Transboundary Waters, as well as the location of sites monitored at various times under the Federal Great Lakes Program. Water quality samples are routinely collected at these sites for physical and chemical water quality parameters such as temperature, pH, alkalinity, turbidity, major ions, nutrients and metals. Pesticides, bacteria and additional parameters of concern are also monitored where site-specific water quality issues exist. The National Long-Term Water Quality Monitoring Data are published online.

Figure 2: Long-term water quality monitoring sites

Long description

Figure 2 is a map of Canada indicating the location of long-term water quality monitoring sites. The long-term freshwater quality monitoring network consists of federal, federal-provincial and federal-territorial sampling sites across Canada. They are situated in the following ocean drainage areas: Arctic Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Bay and Pacific Ocean.

Since 2010, ECCC’s Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Division has utilized the Risk Based Adaptive Management Framework (RBAMF) to optimize its monitoring activities. The RBAMF is defined through a set of established pillars that guide its various components. These pillars include defining monitoring responsibilities, identifying risks to water quality at monitoring sites and across Canada’s drainage basins, optimizing monitoring operations, and ensuring data quality and data access, all of which improves reporting outcomes.

Existing long-term monitoring sites have been classified under a series of national scale networks, namely Large Rivers, Large Lakes Priority, Transboundary Rivers, Reference, and High Stress where each network included a set of specific national monitoring objectives. Each network was developed to improve comparability of monitoring data.

ECCC’s Freshwater Quality Monitoring Program is aligned with Canada’s major watersheds (Pacific, Arctic/Athabasca, Hudson Bay and Atlantic watersheds)(see Figure 2). This program promotes robust water resource management across Canada.

For more information, please consult the ECCC Freshwater Quality Monitoring website.

3.3 Biological monitoring

In addition to the physical-chemical water quality monitoring detailed above, ECCC also undertakes biological monitoring using benthic macroinvertebrate communities to assess the health of aquatic ecosystems.

Figure 3: CABIN monitoring sites

Long description

Figure 3 is a map of Canada that shows the location of the CABIN monitoring sites across the country and the ocean drainage areas: Arctic Ocean; Atlantic Ocean; Gulf of Mexico; Hudson Bay; Pacific Ocean.

The Canadian Aquatic Biomonitoring Network (CABIN) is a component of the Freshwater Quality Monitoring Program for assessing the biological condition of freshwater ecosystems in Canada using standardized data collection and analysis methods. This component, based on decades of research and development in many countries, has been adopted by multiple organizations across Canada. ECCC’s National CABIN Team provides online data management, assessment tools and models, field and laboratory analysis protocols, certification and training, and ecological research and development. Network partners share their observations within the national database. CABIN partners include federal, provincial and territorial government departments, industry, academia, Indigenous communities, and non-governmental organizations such as community watershed groups. The CABIN Science Team, consisting of ECCC and external scientists with expertise in large-scale ecological monitoring, provides science advice and recommendations. Data from over 10 000 locations across the country are represented in the CABIN database, since the early development of nationally standardized biological monitoring programs in the 1990s.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, limited sampling was conducted during CABIN sampling season of 2020. In 2020-2021, data were collected at 502 sites in various sub-basins across the country, primarily by non-federal government organizations (see Figure 3). Although federal and federal-provincial/territorial sampling was decreased in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the flexible program design meant that a number of CABIN sites were still safely monitored by local academic and community organizations.

3.4 Monitoring information by region

Summaries of the monitoring conducted in the various regions across Canada are discussed below on a region by region basis (with Yukon overlapping both the Pacific Coast and Northern Canada regions), as follows:

3.4.1 Pacific coast

Water quantity monitoring

In British Columbia (BC), during the April 2020 to March 2021 period, annual streamflow volumes ranged near normal (relative to the 1980-2019 time period).

The water quantity monitoring network in BC (452 stations) was adjusted as follows:

Water quality monitoring

Water quality monitoring was conducted in the Pacific watershed (which includes parts of BC and Yukon) under the Canada-British Columbia Water Quality Monitoring Agreement (PDF) and under the Canada-Yukon Agreement on Water Quality and Ecosystem Monitoring.

In the area of Yukon that drains westward to the Pacific Ocean, 2 sites on the Alsek and Dezadeash Rivers were monitored in collaboration with Parks Canada and ECCC. The other water quality monitoring sites in Yukon, which drain to the Bering Sea and were previously assigned as part of the Pacific drainage basin, are included in the report section on Northern Canada (see Section 3.4.2).

In BC, ECCC conducted joint monitoring with the provincial Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy at 37 sites in total, which includes 1 automated station (described below). Fifteen of these sites are co-located with ECCC gauging stations.

In 2020-2021, ECCC, in cooperation with Parks Canada, also operated 5 long-term water quality monitoring sites in the Glacier, Yoho, Mount Revelstoke and Kootenay National Parks in BC and Kluane National Park in the Yukon. These relatively pristine sites provide important reference information for comparison with sites influenced by human activities. Many of these sites are also located in key areas for assessing climate change.

CABIN monitoring

In BC, CABIN monitoring is jointly conducted under the Canada-British Columbia Water Quality Monitoring Agreement.

In 2020-2021, ECCC was unable to collect data for the assessment of biological conditions at long-term physical-chemical monitoring sites in BC due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, significant efforts were spent working with British Columbia on the development of a webpage for the water quality agreement to bring together water quality status and trends and biomonitoring information at long-term water quality sites.

There are 9 reference models available to all CABIN users to conduct biological assessments in nearly all watersheds across BC that were developed collaboratively by federal and provincial agencies (i.e. ECCC, Parks Canada, British Columbia Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy). Models are available for the Fraser River, Skagit River Basin, Okanagan Basin, BC (updated in 2020), Central/North Coast, Northeastern BC, Peace Basin, Columbia Basin, Rocky Mountains national parks, and the preliminary BC South Coast model (currently being revised).

3.4.2 Northern Canada

Water quantity monitoring

In 2020-2021, snowpack in the western portion of the Northwest Territories and the southern portion of the Yukon were well above normal (188% in southern Yukon). Water levels on Great Slave Lake were the highest on record, which created elevated flows on the Mackenzie River during the winter of 2020-2021. These conditions contributed to flooding during the 2021 breakup period, which resulted in the evacuation of several communities. The villages of Hay River, Jean Marie River, Fort Simpson and Fort Good Hope all had evacuation orders issued. Downstream communities, such as Aklavik, also had voluntary evacuation notices.

Kluane Lake in the Yukon continues to experience significantly lower peak water levels as a result of a 2016 river piracy event, where the Slims River, which drains into Kluane Lake, had its flow diverted as a result of the retreat of the Kaskawulsh Glacier. To better describe and capture the change in flow characteristics, the Kluane River at the outlet of Kluane Lake was re-established as an annual discharge station, with operating costs being shared between the Yukon Government and the Water Survey of Canada since in 2019.

The water quantity monitoring network in this region was adjusted as follows:

Water quality monitoring

Many of the High Arctic sites are considered relatively pristine and provide an important baseline and reference for comparison with respect to long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants to high-latitude areas, as well as for any potential future influences from human activities in the North. ECCC also operates water quality sites on major rivers in the North, some associated with transboundary basins (e.g. Mackenzie River, Slave River, Liard River, Yukon River) or are significant northern watersheds (e.g. Coppermine River, Thelon River, Great Bear Lake/River).

ECCC monitored 39 sites within the Arctic watershed and across the North: 19 in the Northwest Territories, 6 in Nunavut, 11 in Yukon, and 3 in Northern Alberta. Many of these sites were operated under agreement with Nahanni National Park. Many of these sites were also co-located with ECCC’s gauge stations. Twelve sites that are typically sampled under agreements with 6 other National Parks in Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut were not sampled in 2020-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Water quality monitoring was conducted in the Yukon under the Canada-Yukon Agreement on Water Quality and Ecosystem Monitoring. Eleven river sites were monitored in collaboration with Environment Yukon, including 1 automated site. Sampling operations under the Canada-Yukon Agreement were suspended from April to October 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight sites are co-located with ECCC’s gauge stations.

CABIN monitoring

In 2020-2021, ECCC was unable to collect data for the assessment of biological condition at long-term physical-chemical monitoring sites in the Yukon due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Northern bioassessment models are available for site assessment of CABIN samples collected in the Yukon River Basin and are also available to other government organizations conducting biomonitoring programs, including the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Government of Yukon. A bioassessment model is also available for the South Nahanni Basin in the Northwest Territories, which is primarily used by Parks Canada.

3.4.3 Prairie region

Water quantity monitoring

Ice jams and overland flooding impacted several stations from April through to late July in 2020. The city of Fort McMurray declared a state of emergency resulting in evacuation orders issued in low-lying areas of the city. ECCC’s Water Survey of Canada recorded some of the highest water levels on record. Higher than normal precipitation in June and July of 2020 in the Peace, Athabasca, and North Saskatchewan River basins resulted in high water events in several areas of the province. Water survey staff documented some of the highest water levels on record once again at several stations related to the flooding that had occurred.

High Streamflow and Flood Watch advisories continued in the Peace River, Athabasca, North Saskatchewan, Red Deer, and Oldman River Basins of the province throughout June and July of 2020.

Flows on the Athabasca River were much higher than normal throughout the summer of 2020. In addition, flows on the Peace River were much higher than average between July and September 2020, with these flows exceeding the 75th percentile for much of the summer of 2020.

The global COVID-19 pandemic affected operations and the delivery of the program in 2020-2021. Minimal field operations continued with the necessary protective measures, only when responding to critical situations.

Water quality monitoring
Lower Athabasca, Peace and Slave River Watershed

Sampling operations in the Athabasca, Peace and Slave river watersheds were reduced in 2020-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ECCC collected approximately 40 samples from 7 of 13 stations during the fall and winter. All but 3 of these stations are monitored under the Oil Sands Monitoring Program in partnership with Alberta Environment and Parks. The monitoring work done under this plan was designed to track the cumulative effects of oil sands development in air, water, wildlife, and biodiversity to help inform government and industry decision-making processes.

Hudson Bay Watershed

As part of the National Long-Term Freshwater Quality Monitoring Network and in support of the Prairie Provinces Water Board Master Agreement on Apportionment, ECCC monitors 12 sites along the main rivers crossing between the Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba provincial boundaries. This past year only 4 out of 12 samples were collected for rivers in this network.

Data from this monitoring is used to support annual reporting on water quality objectives for nutrient, metal, major ion, and pesticide parameters established by Canada, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and to support the Lake Winnipeg Basin Program.

ECCC worked with Manitoba Sustainable Development under the Science Subsidiary Arrangement made pursuant to the Canada-Manitoba Memorandum of Understanding Respecting Lake Winnipeg and the Lake Winnipeg Basin (PDF). Key transboundary monitoring sites are located on the Red River, Pembina River, Winnipeg River, and Souris River. The Red River and Souris River, in particular, have encountered many water quality issues over time (nutrients, metals, pesticides, salinity). Water quality and water quantity issues on these rivers are addressed formally through the International Red River Board and International Souris River Board under the International Joint Commission (IJC) (see section 6.5).

All of the transboundary rivers in the watershed are usually monitored 8 to 12 times per year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, monitoring activity was reduced to 4 to 8 times depending on the river.

Finally, under a Memorandum of Understanding with Parks Canada, sites in Banff, Jasper, and Waterton National Parks were only sampled twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These sites provided water quality information to Parks Canada and were used as reference sites as part of ECCC’s Long-Term Water Quality Monitoring Program.

CABIN monitoring
Lower Athabasca, Peace and Slave River Watersheds

In the Athabasca, Peace and Slave River Watersheds, under the Oil Sands Monitoring Program, no CABIN sampling was conducted at any sites in 2020-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. CABIN is conducted by Parks Canada at other long-term physical-chemical monitoring sites. There is a reference model available to all CABIN users to conduct biological assessments in the Rocky Mountain Parks watersheds developed by Parks Canada which overlaps the BC-Alberta border.

3.4.4 Ontario region

Water quantity monitoring

There were few high water events during 2020-2021 across Ontario, with the exception of localized flooding due to ice jamming in some northern locations. High water levels in the Great Lakes continued to contribute to extended periods of shore flooding and in-land flooding in that area.

Beginning in March 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic affected operations and the delivery of the program. In some cases, station visits did not take place, and data uncertainty caused the suppression of realtime data. At the peak, on July 24th 2020, 95 stations had suppressed water level and discharge data. This number was reduced gradually until November 4, 2020, when all data suppression alerts were lifted. Part of this activity involved constant communication with all data users and funding partners.

Water quality monitoring

In Ontario, federal-provincial and Canada-United States water quality monitoring is supported through the Canada-Ontario Agreement on Great Lakes Water Quality and Ecosystem Health and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) between Canada and the United States.

Monitoring results generated by ECCC contribute to indicators assessing the status of the Great Lakes ecosystem for toxic chemicals in water, sediments and fish, as well as indicators on the status of nutrients, water quality and algae; however, in 2020-2021, ECCC did not conduct any water quality monitoring due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

CABIN monitoring

Previously collected CABIN data was reported as part of work for Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOC’s) detailed in the Great Lakes Protection Initiative section of this report. Additional samples collected in Ontario were part of Department of National Defense monitoring initiatives on Canadian Forces Base Borden and Petawawa, and CFTA Burwash. No other work was conducted in Ontario in 2020-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

3.4.5 Quebec region

Water quantity monitoring
Water quality monitoring

In 2020-2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, no samples were collected at federal sites in the St. Lawrence River Basin. However, the program benefited from that pause for a review and update initiative that will inform future monitoring activities.

Quebec’s activities were also impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 39 sites in the St. Lawrence River and its tributaries were still monitored according to the Canada-Quebec Water Quality Monitoring Agreement (2017-2022), but fieldwork stopped during the months of April and May 2020. It gradually resumed and was back to normal in June. The stations were sampled monthly for physical parameters, nutrients, chlorophyll and fecal coliforms. During the summer months, metals were measured monthly at 9 of those stations.

CABIN monitoring

No sampling was done in 2020 given the restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the St. Lawrence River Priority Ecosystem and La Mauricie National Park, no biomonitoring sampling was done in 2020-2021 given the restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

3.4.6 Atlantic region

In the Atlantic region, the COVID-19 epidemiology and regional public health management measures allowed ECCC and its partners to achieve approximately 75% of planned monitoring and surveillance sampling. This was in part achieved through continued collaboration with provincial partners and amendments to federal/provincial agreements under the Canada Water Act.

Water quantity monitoring
Water quality monitoring

In the Atlantic watershed, federal-provincial water quality monitoring is supported through:

In 2020-2021, 3 federal-provincial and 8 provincial sites were monitored under the Canada-Prince Edward Island Memorandum of Agreement, including 1 real-time (automated) site on the Wilmot River. In addition, pesticide surveillance was conducted during the growing season. The sites are distributed across the province, with data available on the Government of Prince Edward Island’s website.

In 2020-2021, ECCC managed 13 federal sites, including 2 automated sites, in Nova Scotia in support of the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicator pertaining to water quality. Nova Scotia Environment provided support on data collection. The sites are located across the province and cover major watersheds within the Maritime Major Drainage Area, including those flowing into the Bay of Fundy. No samples were collected in the spring and summer months due to COVID-19 restrictions; however, sampling in the fall and winter was possible due to the lower health risks in the province at that time.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, 24 federal-provincial and 56 provincial sites across the major drainage areas were sampled 4 to 6 times in 2020-2021. No samples were collected from the first quarter (April – June) due to COVID-19; however, the Water Quality Monitoring Agreement facilitated local sampling within the province where health risks were lower. Data and station information from the sites are available on the Newfoundland and Labrador Water Resources website.

Under the Canada-New Brunswick Water Quality Agreement during 2020-2021, 10 federal-provincial sites were monitored on international and interprovincial transboundary rivers or their tributaries in the Saint John River (Wolastoq) and Restigouche River watersheds. Three additional real-time automated sites in the Saint John River (Wolastoq) watershed were also maintained by ECCC at the borders of the transboundary Big Presque Isle Stream, Aroostook River and Meduxnekeag River. Maintenance of those real-time stations was limited due to COVID-19, so some data gaps exist in the data for 2020-2021.

CABIN monitoring

In the Atlantic provinces, 97 stream and river sites were monitored by ECCC and certified partners in 2020. Out of this total, 9 were monitored by ECCC, 49 by other federal departments or Parks Canada, 10 by provincial governments, 14 by academics, 14 by non-governmental organizations and 1 site by an Indigenous organization. This work supported federal-provincial water quality monitoring agreements with New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island. The monitoring allowed partners to conduct assessments in transboundary watersheds (such as Saint Croix) and federal lands (national parks and Indigenous communities).

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