Resource managers and industry leaders including decision-makers from federal, provincial, territorial, and regional governments and the private sector will use the NHN for water management. The NHN will also be available to non-governmental organizations, environmental groups, and to the public for monitoring and information purposes and for individual decision-making.

The network will be used for water flow analysis, watershed monitoring and management, and data querying and manipulation. For example, in the case of a chemical spill, the NHN can be used in combination with GIS to track the flow of contaminants in surface water to find out where these contaminants will go and whom they will affect. Similarly, the NHN can be used to monitor water levels in the case of drought or flood to help decision-makers evaluate the need for agricultural relief measures or evacuation.

The NHN is GIS ready, meaning that it can be incorporated into broader information systems to help show the relationship of surface water with other geographical features. This preserves data integrity that may otherwise be lost in the manipulation of data when incorporating into various GIS systems. It also facilitates the sharing of water-related information, making the NHN a useful tool to a wide range of water management applications.

The GSDNR Communicator: Fall 2004