Water management in Canada will face significant pressures over the coming decade. The sharing, discovery, access and use of water information across jurisdictions and partners is the foundation to meeting this challenge.
What is RésEau?
RésEau is a Government On-Line demonstration initiative that focuses on water information. RésEau supports clean, safe, and secure water for all Canadians and ecosystems. Specifically, RésEau establishes partnerships and projects to demonstrate the sharing, discovery, access, and use of water information over the Internet.
The initiative is led by Environment Canada in partnership with Natural Resources Canada and Health Canada and will deliver in March 2006. Its user-driven focus targets information for a wide range of generalists and specialists, from high school-level youth to water resource managers.
Sound Science / Technical Architecture
Scientific integrity is a key pillar of RésEau, starting with credible water quality, quantity and use data. Standards and specifications endorsed by the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure and the Open Geospatial Consortium are also the essential foundation of RésEau projects.
Projects and Partnerships
RésEau plays a leadership role in pulling together existing data and information (including water quality, quantity, and use) from distributed networks of partners across numerous Canadian jurisdictions.
Water stakeholders in all levels of government, non-government organizations, and community groups are being engaged through this national partnership initiative. These partnerships demonstrate how information can effectively be shared, discovered, accessed, and used when common technical and scientific standards are used.
RésEau builds on Environment Canada's data integration successes achieved through the strategy outlined in the Canadian Information System for the Environment. Collaboration with other national environmental information initiatives is instrumental, including the following:
RésEau Principles
- Sharing — to promote and facilitate data sharing across distributed sources.
- Discovery — to enable data discovery by using metadata and geospatial standards in an open, interoperable architecture.
- Access — to provide direct access to integrated data and information where desirable.
- Use — to demonstrate the use of science-based tools for analysis, reporting, and decision support.
Products
The portal will include data, interpreted information, tools, and services to facilitate the interconnection of water information from distributed sources to promote a greater understanding of complex water issues for enhanced decision making.
RésEau is a key step in the complex task of providing Canadians with timely access to credible water information, data, and tools.
