Census of Environment: Renewable freshwater for selected drainage regions and ecoprovinces, 1971 to 2020

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Statistics Canada's Census of Environment program reports on ecosystems in Canada, providing information to help Canadians make evidence-based decisions to protect, rehabilitate, enhance and sustain our environment. It follows the internationally accepted environmental-economic standard for producing information on ecosystems' extent, their condition and the services they provide.

New estimates of water yield are now available in tables 38-10-0283-01, 38-10-0003-01, 38-10-0091-01 and 38-10-0095-01. These updates allow Canadians to analyze historical long-term patterns in annual and monthly water yield and compare geographical distribution of renewable freshwater across Canada from 1971 to 2020.

These tables provide annual estimates of renewable freshwater and long-term estimates of median, minimum and maximum monthly renewable freshwater, by drainage region (Standard Drainage Area Classification) and ecoprovince (Ecological Land Classification 2017).

Water yield estimates are derived from data on the monthly volume of unregulated flows in Canada's rivers and streams. Although water yield provides an estimate of renewable freshwater volume, it also includes a volume of water that is not renewable (e.g., meltwater from receding glaciers).

For more information on water yield, see the article "Freshwater in Canada," in Human Activity and the Environment (16-201-X), and "The Water Yield for Canada As a Thirty-year Average (1971 to 2000): Concepts, Methodology and Initial Results," as part of the Environment Accounts and Statistics Analytical and Technical Paper Series (16-001-M).

Additional information can be found in the Physical asset accounts section of the Methodological Guide: Canadian System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.

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