Water data sources in Canada

National freshwater quality monitoring with 350+ sites across Canada's watersheds

Free | National (all major watersheds - Pacific, Arctic, Hudson Bay, Atlantic)

Government of Alberta network of ~306 observation wells with current and historical groundwater levels, accessible through an interactive map with per-well water-level data and...

Free | Alberta

Real-time and historical water data for Alberta's major river basins including the North Saskatchewan, South Saskatchewan, Bow, Athabasca, and Peace rivers with flow, level, and...

Free | Alberta Province

Government of Alberta map-based tool for searching, viewing and downloading surface water-quality data from monitoring stations across the province, including the Tributary...

Free | Regional

British Columbia water availability tool providing watershed-level streamflow, water demand and licensing analysis for assessing water availability across BC.

Free | British Columbia

British Columbia's water resources mapping tool providing data on water wells, aquifers, water licences, streamflow stations, and water quality monitoring locations across the...

Free | British Columbia Province

Natural Resources Canada Emergency Geomatics Service providing near-real-time flood extent polygons derived from RADARSAT SAR and Landsat imagery, updated within 4 hours during...

Free | Canada nationwide, near-real-time during events

Natural Resources Canada platform for discovering and downloading RADARSAT Constellation Mission, RADARSAT-2, and RADARSAT-1 SAR imagery for flood mapping, ice monitoring, and...

Registration Required | Global (focus on Canada), RADARSAT 1995-present

Natural Resources Canada / GSC network improving access to groundwater information across Canada, with water well databases, monitoring data, aquifer/geology maps and downloadable...

Free | National

Canadian hydrometric data

Free | 7900+ stations

National groundwater data portal managed by Natural Resources Canada, providing access to groundwater well data, aquifer maps, and groundwater level monitoring data across...

Free | National

Ice and frozen water monitoring for Canadian waters

Free | Canadian waters and Arctic

Canadian climate data portal with CMIP6 projections

Free | Canada high-resolution climate

Quebec's open data portal dataset of physicochemical and bacteriological water quality monitoring across river and St.

Free | Regional (Quebec)

Environment and Climate Change Canada national freshwater quality monitoring program with 15+ years of records across all major Canadian river basins (Saint Lawrence, Columbia...

Free | National (all major river basins)

Environment and Climate Change Canada GeoMet OGC API Features endpoint for Canadian hydrometric monitoring stations (water level and flow), with daily mean and real-time discharge...

Free | Canada

Environment and Climate Change Canada OGC API (pygeoapi) serving real-time water level and discharge data for the last 30 days from over 2100 hydrometric stations across Canada.

Free | National

Government of Canada dataset tracking short-term and long-term drinking water advisories on First Nations reserves south of 60° with historical status data since 2015.

Free | First Nations reserves (south of 60°)

Open platform sharing community-based water-quality monitoring data from 21 communities in the NWT-wide program across the Mackenzie River Basin, with full dataset access...

Free | Mackenzie River Basin / NWT

Near real-time water level and water temperature data from hydrometric gauging stations operated by Manitoba Hydro, Water Survey of Canada and Manitoba water agencies, updated...

Free | Sub-national

Manitoba's hydrological forecasting service providing flood forecasts, river level data, ice conditions, and soil moisture data for Manitoba's rivers including the Red River and...

Free | Manitoba Province

Province of Manitoba GeoPortal app showing river and lake stations with water level and/or flow data and forecast information across Manitoba.

Free | Manitoba

Metro Vancouver source-water reservoir level and water-use data for the regional drinking-water supply reservoirs (Capilano, Seymour, Coquitlam).

Free | Metro Vancouver

Long-term freshwater quality data from federal and federal-provincial sampling sites

Free | Canada's aquatic ecosystems

Natural Resources Canada flood mapping data hub, including a national flood susceptibility map produced via machine learning and near-real-time satellite-derived flood extent maps...

Free | Canada

Government of New Brunswick portal providing lakes and rivers water-quality data collected by the department and partners since 2003 and regularly updated, covering nutrients...

Free | Regional

Nova Scotia Environment automated surface water quality network with probes co-located at hydrometric sites providing near real-time water quality data and downloadable datasets.

Free | Sub-national

Ontario Ministry of the Environment's groundwater monitoring network providing water level and water quality data from provincial monitoring wells across Ontario, Canada.

Free | Ontario Province

Quebec government hydrological data centre providing streamflow measurements, water level data, and hydrological atlases for Quebec's rivers and lakes across the province.

Free | Quebec Province

Saskatchewan's provincial water agency providing data on surface water allocations, groundwater resources, watershed health assessments, and dam safety information for the...

Free | Saskatchewan Province

WSA open data portal for spatially searching and downloading stream flow and lake-level data from Saskatchewan hydrometric gauging stations, plus dams and reservoirs, in...

Free | Saskatchewan

Fisheries and Oceans Canada monthly water level bulletin and underlying data for the Great Lakes and Montreal Harbour, with observed and forecast lake levels.

Free | Great Lakes / St. Lawrence

Water Survey of Canada - real-time and historical hydrometric data from 7780+ stations

Free | Canada nationwide - 2800+ active gauges

CANOPEX: meteorological and hydrometric time series plus watershed boundaries for 698 Canadian natural watersheds with 20+ years of record (streamflow, station and NRCan-gridded...

Free | 698 watersheds (Canada)

Canadian Watershed Information Network ERDDAP (Centre for Earth Observation Science, University of Manitoba) hosting freshwater and Arctic datasets for the Hudson Bay watershed.

Free | Hudson Bay watershed

High-resolution global maps of subsurface permeability and porosity (avg polygon ~100 km2) used widely in groundwater modelling, downloadable as a 1.1 GB geodatabase under CC-BY...

Free | Global

Updated global hydrogeology permeability map (GLHYMPS 2.0) compiling and mapping permeability of unconsolidated and consolidated geologic units worldwide, hosted on the Borealis...

Free | Global

Ocean Networks Canada (University of Victoria) ERDDAP serving cabled-observatory and coastal sensor data: water temperature, salinity, oxygen, pressure and currents off Canada's...

Free | Canada Pacific/Arctic

University of British Columbia SalishSeaCast ERDDAP serving NEMO/FVCOM/WaveWatch III ocean model output and real-time sensor data: currents, temperature, salinity, sea surface...

Free | Salish Sea

Open-access online hub launched in 2018 to access, visualize and download full water-quality datasets across the Atlantic provinces of Canada, aggregating community and agency...

Free | Regional

Open-access online hub for securely sharing, visualizing and downloading full water-quality datasets collected by monitoring groups throughout the Lake Winnipeg watershed in...

Free | Regional

Open-access hub for sharing water-quality data across the Mackenzie River Basin (BC, Alberta, NWT, Yukon) with 79 monitoring groups and 3.6 million unique measurements, offering...

Free | Regional

BC Hydro near-real-time and historical reservoir elevations, lake levels, stream levels/flows and snow water equivalents for British Columbia reservoir systems, in tabular...

Free | British Columbia

Manitoba Hydro near-real-time hydrological data for gauging stations across the province: water level, water/air temperature, wind, precipitation, humidity and pressure...

Free | Manitoba

Hakai Institute ERDDAP with ~32 coastal-margin datasets (water properties, oceanographic moorings, weather, sensor networks) from the Pacific coast of British Columbia.

Free | British Columbia coast

Ocean Tracking Network (Dalhousie University) ERDDAP providing aquatic animal telemetry and associated oceanographic/water datasets across global receiver arrays.

Free | Global

National CWI program mapping Canadian wetlands (shallow water, marsh, swamp, fen, bog) from aerial photography and satellite imagery, with an interactive progress map and detailed...

Limited | Canada

SmartAtlantic Alliance ERDDAP serving real-time coastal buoy observations (waves, currents, water temperature, meteorology) for Atlantic Canada ports and approaches.

Free | Atlantic Canada

EM-Earth ensemble meteorological dataset for global land (1950-2019, 0.1 degree) with deterministic and 25-member probabilistic estimates of precipitation, temperature and...

Free | 1950-2019, 0.1 degree