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Thematic Water Data Standards

This project will produce a document entitled Water Quality Data Exchange Guide: Standards and Best Practices. This guide will develop a common framework to help share water information among all levels of government, watershed agencies, companies, researchers, Aboriginal councils, and local community groups.

Every year organizations take thousands of water measurements and samples pertaining to water quality, shorelines, wetlands, fish, and habitat monitoring. Yet organizations have difficulty exchanging this data because it is either widely dispersed or incompatible.

In developing a common framework for thematic data standards, this project will work with water data sets of critical public concern: ground water contamination, reduction of optimal fish habitats, and the poisoning of inland lakes by blue-green algae blooms.

With properly aligned water-quality data at their disposal, organizations will be able to exchange data much more easily than they can today. At the same time, built-in compatibility with the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) will ensure that all users can reliably and easily share information.

In fact, this improved sharing will enable Canadians to act constructively to guard against increasing threats to human health and natural biodiversity.


Primary Partner: Centre for Sustainable Watersheds  Portland,  Ontario;

Partners: Environment & Sustainable Development Research Centre, University of New Brunswick
H20 Chelsea
City of Greater Sudbury
Indigenous Cooperative on the Environment
Grand River Conservation Authority
OMOE Lake Partner Program
District Municipality of Muskoka

Funding From GeoConnections: $75,043.00 ( 41.0 %)

Estimated Inception Date: December 1, 2007

Estimated Completion Date: July 31, 2008

Deliverables from this project benefitted the following provinces: All provinces