Getting to Know Your Watershed

Do you know which watershed you live in? Do you know which towns are located within your watershed? How about adjoining watersheds? What sort of monitoring activities are taking place in your watershed? If you are motivated to get involved, which organizations can you contact?

Despite an increasing appreciation of water issues, most of us lack basic knowledge about our local watershed. A watershed is an area of land from which all of the water drains to the same location. As decision-makers, planners and the public gain a new appreciation for the importance of our collective activities within local watersheds, demand grows for reliable, detailed information.

A new Government of Canada initiative called RésEau – Building Canadian Water Connections, is helping to provide Canadians with more information about Canada's water resources and in particular, about their local watershed. RésEau has improved access to on-line water information for Canadians, providing data, maps and interactive applications such as the water use calculator. It is one of the handy tools that can let you know how much water you're using every day.

Know Your Watershed

Through the Know Your Watershed website you can enter the name of your town or city to access a series of maps showing the extent of your local watershed as well as the ocean basin it is a part of. This up-to-date information is available for any town in Canada.

Locating your watershed through the RésEau website is just the beginning of a growing "watershed profile" which will help you learn about your local water issues. The information profile includes upstream/downstream basins, reports and web links, names of local environmental groups and interactive maps including real-time water level conditions and water quality stations.

As momentum for this effort grows and Canadians become more aware of this innovative service, the information available on the website can be expanded to include additional dimensions such as local fish species, protected areas, pollution sources, land use information, population statistics and other socio-economic factors.

You can discover which watersheds are upstream and downstream from your home and find out how other regions are connected to your local water system. If you are interested in becoming involved, local environmental groups are listed on the website for each watershed.