A Cost-Effective Enhancement for Canada’s Environmental Monitoring Network: Community-Based Water Monitoring

The policy brief advocates for a shift from short-term competitive grants to 5-year core funding for community-based water monitoring (CBWM) in Canada. It highlights that 100 of Canada's 167 watersheds lack sufficient data for health scores and warns that a lack of long-term monitoring threatens insurance actuarial models and ESG scores for Canadian businesses. The author proposes that the Canada Water Agency coordinate a horizontal initiative to integrate monitoring across federal, provincial, and local levels to reduce redundancy and improve data interoperability.

• Community-based water monitoring (CBWM) is presented as a scientifically rigorous and cost-effective method for collecting water quality data at the watershed scale, offering a return on investment greater than 3:1.
• Canada's current water monitoring capacity is insufficient, with 100 out of 167 watersheds lacking enough data to assign a health score, and a decline in the number of flow-gauging stations over the last 30 years.
• The current funding model for CBWM, which relies on competitive grants on 2–3 year cycles, is incompatible with the needs of long-term monitoring and risks the closure of organizations and the creation of 'dark data' that cannot be used for policy or governance.
• Failure to invest in long-term monitoring may lead to certain areas of Canada becoming uninsurable because insurers cannot assess risk without water data, and may hinder Canadian resource sector businesses in attracting investment due to unknown or negative ESG scores.
• The author recommends establishing a 5-year pilot project for core funding and suggests the Canada Water Agency as the entity to coordinate water monitoring across federal, provincial/territorial, and local levels.

APA

Gunn, G. (2021). A Cost-Effective Enhancement for Canada’s Environmental Monitoring Network: Community-Based Water Monitoring. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2021-11/investment-canadian-community-based-water-monitoring-brief.pdf

Chicago

Gunn, Geoffrey. A Cost-Effective Enhancement for Canada’s Environmental Monitoring Network: Community-Based Water Monitoring. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2021. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2021-11/investment-canadian-community-based-water-monitoring-brief.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Gunn |first1=Geoffrey |title=A Cost-Effective Enhancement for Canada’s Environmental Monitoring Network: Community-Based Water Monitoring |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=November 2021 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2021-11/investment-canadian-community-based-water-monitoring-brief.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{gunn2021costeffective, author = {Gunn, Geoffrey}, title = {{A Cost-Effective Enhancement for Canada’s Environmental Monitoring Network: Community-Based Water Monitoring}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2021}, month = nov, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2021-11/investment-canadian-community-based-water-monitoring-brief.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }