Ottawa River watershed

Healthy rivers: How DNA tool can help keep tabs on freshwater quality

Healthy rivers: How DNA tool can help keep tabs on freshwater quality

In Canada, these watersheds are vast and often inaccessible, making it difficult to monitor the health of these ecosystems. But with the help of a new tool, scientists and community members are collecting data to better understand the state of Canada’s rivers.

A TALE OF THREE WATERSHEDS: WHAT WE KNOW — AND DON’T KNOW — ABOUT THE HEALTH OF CANADA’S FRESHWATER

A TALE OF THREE WATERSHEDS: WHAT WE KNOW — AND DON’T KNOW — ABOUT THE HEALTH OF CANADA’S FRESHWATER

Canada is famously home to 20 percent of the world’s freshwater — but how well are we stewarding this supply? WWF-Canada recently reassessed the health of our country’s 25 watersheds to better understand how they’re responding to threats from pollution, habitat loss and climate change. Our 2020 Watershed Reports found that 26 per cent of Canadas’s 167 sub-watersheds received a score of Good or Very Good, which is good or very good news! But what’s bad, or possibly very bad, is that nearly 60 per cent of these sub-watersheds received no score at all because they remain Data Deficient. In other words, we just don’t know. This lack of data is concerning as we need a complete picture to determine which areas need dedicated efforts to protect our freshwater ecosystems.