What are Canada's drainage basins?
Mackenzie River
At , the Mackenzie River drainage basin encompasses nearly 20 percent of Canada. About , or 54 percent of the basin, lies above Great Slave Lake. Permafrost underlies about three-quarters of the watershed, reaching up to deep in the Mackenzie Delta. As a whole, the Mackenzie basin receives only meager to moderate rainfall, averaging over the entire basin, though mountain areas experience much higher precipitation, and areas near and north of the Arctic Circle receive much lower precipitation.
Indian Lake Chain, Ontario
The Indian Lake Chain is a tourism designation given to a series of interconnected lakes located northwest of the community of Vermilion Bay in Kenora District, Ontario, Canada. The designation takes its name from Indian Lake that is part of the series. According to maps published by resorts located on the lakes, the Indian Lake Chain consists of ten lakes: Little Boulder Lake, Boulder Lake, Cobble Lake, Bladder Lake, Big Moose Lake, Little Moose Lake, Whitney Lake, Edward Lake, Indian Lake and Forrest Lake. However, the Atlas of Canada shows only seven lakes, as Little Boulder, Boulder, Cobble and Bladder Lakes are all simply designated "Cobble Lake". The surface elevation of the lakes is approximately , and the water level is maintained by the Forest Lake Dam. (Forest Lake is spelled with two "R"s on local maps but only one at the Atlas of Canada).
List of rivers of Canada
The major Canadian drainage basins are the following:
Ontario
Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east and northeast, and to the south by the U.S. states of (from west to east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Almost all of Ontario's border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the west at Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. These are the Rainy River, the Pigeon River, Lake Superior, the St. Marys River, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, Ontario, to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall, Ontario. There is only about of land border made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.
Stream
The extent of land basin drained by a stream is termed its drainage basin (also known in North America as the watershed and, in British English, as a catchment). A basin may also be composed of smaller basins. For instance, the Continental Divide in North America divides the mainly easterly-draining Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Ocean basins from the largely westerly-flowing Pacific Ocean basin. The Atlantic Ocean basin, however, may be further subdivided into the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico drainages. (This delineation is termed the Eastern Continental Divide.) Similarly, the Gulf of Mexico basin may be divided into the Mississippi River basin and several smaller basins, such as the Tombigbee River basin. Continuing in this vein, a component of the Mississippi River basin is the Ohio River basin, which in turn includes the Kentucky River basin, and so forth.
Canada
Since the end of the last glacial period, Canada has consisted of eight distinct forest regions, including extensive boreal forest on the Canadian Shield. Canada has over 2,000,000 lakes—563 greater than —which is more than any other country, containing much of the world's fresh water.
There are also fresh-water glaciers in the Canadian Rockies and the Coast Mountains.
Canada is geologically active, having many earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably Mount Meager massif, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley massif, and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex. The volcanic eruption of the Tseax Cone in 1775 was among Canada's worst natural disasters, killing an estimated 2,000 Nisga'a people and destroying their village in the Nass River valley of northern British Columbia. The eruption produced a lava flow, and, according to Nisga'a legend, blocked the flow of the Nass River.
Drainage basin
Drainage basins are the principal hydrologic unit considered in fluvial geomorphology. A drainage basin is the source for water and sediment that moves from higher elevation through the river system to lower elevations as they reshape the channel forms.
Great Lakes
Though the five lakes lie in separate basins, they form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin. They form a chain connecting the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, and finally northward to Lake Ontario. The lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers, and are studded with approximately 35,000 islands. There are also several thousand smaller lakes, often called "inland lakes," within the basin. The surface area of the five primary lakes combined is roughly equal to the size of the United Kingdom, while the surface area of the entire basin (the lakes and the land they drain) is about the size of the UK and France combined. Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes that is located entirely within the United States; the others form a water boundary between the United States and Canada. The lakes are divided among the jurisdictions of the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Both Ontario and Michigan include in their boundaries portions of four of the lakes: Ontario does not border Lake Michigan, and Michigan does not border Lake Ontario. New York and Wisconsin's jurisdictions extend into two lakes, and each of the remaining states into one of the lakes.
Saint John River (Bay of Fundy)
The Saint John River is a long river that flows from Northern Maine into Canada, and runs south along the western side of New Brunswick, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean in the Bay of Fundy. Eastern Canada's longest river, its drainage basin is one of the largest on the east coast at about .
Geography of Canada
Canada covers and a panoply of various geoclimatic regions. There are 8 main regions. Canada also encompasses vast maritime terrain, with the world's longest coastline of . The physical geography of Canada is widely varied. Boreal forests prevail throughout the country, ice is prominent in northerly Arctic regions and through the Rocky Mountains, and the relatively flat Canadian Prairies in the southwest facilitate productive agriculture. The Great Lakes feed the St. Lawrence River (in the southeast) where lowlands host much of Canada's population.
List of longest rivers of Canada
Sources report hydrological quantities with varied precision. Biologist and author Ruth Patrick, describing a table of high-discharge rivers, wrote that data on discharge, drainage area, and length varied widely among authors whose works she consulted. "It seems," she said, "that the wisest course is to regard data tables such as the present one as showing the general ranks of rivers, and not to place too much importance on minor (10–20%) differences in figures."
Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben
The depressions formed by the graben across the rugged Canadian Shield were a spillway for the Great Lakes after the last Ice Age. Later they became a thoroughfare for exploration and trade. These depressions now contain the Ottawa River and its tributary the Mattawa, which rises at Trout Lake near Lake Nipissing. The latter is the source of the French River, which drains into Lake Huron. This water route, with few portages, connected Lake Huron and the Saint Lawrence River by a much shorter route than through the lower Great Lakes. It was the mainline of the French-Canadian voyageurs engaged in the fur trade; they took canoes on the waterways along this route from Montreal to the upper Great Lakes and the "pays d'en haut"—the "upper country" in the old Northwest.
Mackenzie River
The Mackenzie River (Slavey language: Deh-Cho , "big river" or Inuvialuktun: Kuukpak , "great river"; ) is the longest river system in Canada, and has the second largest drainage basin of any North American river after the Mississippi River. The Mackenzie River flows through a vast, thinly populated region of forest and tundra entirely within the Canadian Northwest Territories, although its many tributaries reach into four other Canadian provinces and territories.
Drainage basin
Drainage basins of the principal oceans and seas of the world. Grey areas are endorheic basins that do not drain to the oceans.
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River has the world's fourth-largest drainage basin ("watershed" or "catchment"). The basin covers more than , including all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The drainage basin empties into the Gulf of Mexico, part of the Atlantic Ocean. The total catchment of the Mississippi River covers nearly 40% of the landmass of the continental United States. The highest point within the watershed is also the highest point of the Rocky Mountains, Mount Elbert at .
History of flooding in Canada
The province of Manitoba completed the Red River Floodway in 1968 after six years of excavation, put up permanent dikes in eight towns south of Winnipeg, and built clay dikes and diversion dams in the Winnipeg area. Other flood control structures completed later were the Portage Diversion and the Shellmouth Dam on the Assiniboine.
Fundy Basin
The Fundy Basin is a sediment-filled rift basin on the Atlantic coast of southeastern Canada. It contains three sub-basins; the Fundy sub-basin, the Minas Basin and the Chignecto Basin. These arms meet at the Bay of Fundy, which is contained within the rift valley. From the Bay of Fundy, the Minas Basin trends northeast to Nova Scotia. Chignecto Bay runs from the Bay of Fundy northwest between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia which is separated from the waters of the Northumberland Strait by the Isthmus of Chignecto.
The Fundy Basin is best known for the bay it contains. The Bay of Fundy is home to huge tidal changes and tidal bores. It is part of the system of Eastern North America Rift Basins.
Rocky Mountain Trench
The Trench is drained by four major river basins: the Columbia, Fraser, Peace and Liard. Two reservoirs of the Columbia River Treaty fill much of its length today - Lake Koocanusa and Lake Kinbasket. A further British Columbia power initiative created Lake Williston. Rivers that follow the Trench, at least in part, are the Kootenay River, the Columbia River, the Canoe River, the Flathead River, the Fraser River, the Parsnip River, the Finlay River, the Fox River, and the Kechika River. The North Fork of the Flathead River, flowing into Flathead Lake with the other branches of the Flathead River, is part of the Columbia River system. The Kechika is part of the Liard River system, and the Fox, Parsnip and Finlay Rivers are part of the Peace River system. The Canoe River is a short tributary of the Columbia system, draining into Kinbasket Lake, a reservoir on the Columbia River. The Kootenai River, however, does not fully follow the Trench but exits Canada southwest via Lake Koocanusa reservoir to the Libby Dam. The Kootenay River (Canadian spelling) is a tributary of the Columbia, joining the Columbia at Castlegar, BC after a meander through the United States as the Kootenai River (US spelling).
Volcanology of Canada
Vast volumes of basaltic lava covered Northern Canada in the form of a flood basalt event 1,267 million years ago that engulfed the landscape near the Coppermine River southwest of Coronation Gulf in the Canadian Arctic. This volcanic activity built an extensive lava plateau and large igneous province with an area of representing a volume of lavas of at least . With an area of and a volume of at least , it is larger than the Columbia River Basalt Group in the United States and comparable in size to the Deccan Traps in west-central India, making it one of the largest flood basalt events ever to appear on the North American continent, as well as on Earth. This massive eruptive event was associated with the Mackenzie magmatic event, that included the coeval, layered, mafic-ultramafic Muskox intrusion and the enormous Mackenzie dike swarm that diverges from the Coppermine River flood basalts. The maximum thickness of the flood basalts are and consist of 150 lava flows, each thick. These flood basalt lava flows were erupted during a single event that lasted less than five million years. Analysis of the chemical composition of the lavas gives important clues about the origin and dynamics of the flood basalt volcanism. The lowermost lavas were produced by melting in the garnet stability field below the surface at a depth of more than in a mantle plume environment beneath the North American lithosphere. As the mantle plume intruded rocks of the Canadian Shield, it created an upwelling zone of molten rock known as the Mackenzie hotspot. Upper lavas were partly contaminated with crustal rocks as magmas from the mantle plume passed through the lower and upper crust.
Geography of Canada
The Canadian Rockies are part of a major continental divide that extends north and south through western North America and western South America. The Columbia and the Fraser Rivers have their headwaters in the Canadian Rockies and are the second and third largest rivers respectively to drain to the west coast of North America. To the west of their headwaters, across the Rocky Mountain Trench, is a second belt of mountains, the Columbia Mountains, comprising the Selkirk, Purcell, Monashee and Cariboo Mountains sub-ranges.
Drainage basin
Endorheic drainage basins are inland basins that do not drain to an ocean. Around 18% of all land drains to endorheic lakes or seas or sinks. The largest of these consists of much of the interior of Asia, which drains into the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea, and numerous smaller lakes. Other endorheic regions include the Great Basin in the United States, much of the Sahara Desert, the drainage basin of the Okavango River (Kalahari Basin), highlands near the African Great Lakes, the interiors of Australia and the Arabian Peninsula, and parts in Mexico and the Andes. Some of these, such as the Great Basin, are not single drainage basins but collections of separate, adjacent closed basins.
North European Plain
Major river-drainage basins include, from west to east: the
Rhine, Ems, Weser, Elbe, Oder and Vistula.
Geography of Canada
The southern parts of Quebec and Ontario, in the section of the Great Lakes (bordered entirely by Ontario on the Canadian side) and St. Lawrence basin (often called St. Lawrence Lowlands), is another particularly rich sedimentary plain. Prior to its colonization and heavy urban sprawl of the 20th century, this Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests area was home to large mixed forests covering a mostly flat area of land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Canadian Shield. Most of this forest has been cut down through agriculture and logging operations, but the remaining forests are for the most part heavily protected. In this part of Canada the Gulf of St. Lawrence is one of the world's largest estuary (see Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests).
List of longest rivers of Canada
The primary source for data in the table below is "The Atlas of Canada"; other sources are as noted. Discharge refers to the flow at the mouth except as noted. U.S. states appear in italics. Abbreviations are as follows: "km" for "kilometre", "mi" for "mile", "s" for "second", "m" for "metre", and "ft" for "foot".
Nutrient cycling in the Columbia River Basin
Beginning in the 1930s with the construction of the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams, the Columbia River has experienced significant modification to its flow. Today, the US Army Corps of Engineers recognize over 250 reservoirs, 150 hydroelectric projects, and 18 mainstem dams on the Columbia and its main tributary, the Snake River. Dams have been shown to directly impact nutrient cycling within the Columbia river basin through the formation of reservoirs which dramatically alter river hydrology and discharge rates and as a result constitute a major anthroprogenic impact on nutrient cycling in the river. Due to its size and the large number of dams within the basin, the Columbia River basin is often used as representative case study on how dams an impact nutrient cycling of watersheds in general. Notably, dam construction in the Columbia River Basin has impacted relative nutrient ratios, methane production, and salmon migration.
Missouri River
As one of the continent's most significant river systems, the Missouri's drainage basin borders on many other major watersheds of the United States and Canada. The Continental Divide, running along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, forms most of the western border of the Missouri watershed. The Clark Fork and Snake River, both part of the Columbia River basin, drain the area west of the Rockies in Montana, Idaho and western Wyoming. The Columbia, Missouri and Colorado River watersheds meet at Three Waters Mountain in Wyoming's Wind River Range. South of there, the Missouri basin is bordered on the west by the drainage of the Green River, a tributary of the Colorado, then on the south by the mainstem of the Colorado. Both the Colorado and Columbia Rivers flow to the Pacific Ocean. However, a large endorheic drainage called the Great Divide Basin exists between the Missouri and Green watersheds in western Wyoming. This area is sometimes counted as part of the Missouri River watershed, even though its waters do not flow to either side of the Continental Divide.
Sacramento River
The major drainage basins bordering that of the Sacramento are that of the Klamath in the north, the San Joaquin and Mokelumne to the south and the Eel River in the west. The Russian River also lies to the west and the endorheic (closed) Honey Lake and Eagle Lake basins to the north. On the east side are many endorheic watersheds of the Great Basin including the Truckee River and Carson River. Parts of the Sacramento watershed come very close to, but do not extend past, the border of California and Nevada.
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay (Inuktitut: "Kangiqsualuk ilua", ) (sometimes called Hudson's Bay, usually historically) is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada with a surface area of . It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of southeastern Nunavut, Saskatchewan, most of Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and indirectly through smaller passages of water to parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana. Hudson Bay's southern arm is called James Bay.
Fraser River
The Water Survey of Canada currently operates 17 gauge stations that measure discharge and water level along the majority of the mainstem from Red Pass just downstream of Moose Lake within the Mount Robson Provincial Park to Steveston in Vancouver at the river mouth. With an average flow at the mouth of about , the Fraser is the largest river by discharge flowing into the Pacific seaboard of Canada and the fifth largest in the country. The average flow is highly seasonal; summer discharge rates can be ten times larger than the flow during the winter.
Boreal forest of Canada
The boreal forest also has vast areas of wetland, particularly bogs and fens. Two wetland areas, the Hudson Bay Lowland and the Mackenzie River basin, are among the ten largest wetlands in the world. The boreal forest wetlands provide wildlife habitat (particularly for migratory birds), they maintain water flow in rivers, and they store significant amounts of carbon that otherwise would be released to the atmosphere.
Greywater
Although Canada is a water-rich country, the center of the country freezes in the winter and droughts happen some summers. There are locations where watering outdoors is restricted in the dry season, some water must be transported from an outside source, or on-site costs are high. At present, the standards for greywater reuse are not strict compared with other countries. The National Plumbing Code, which is adopted in whole or in part by the provinces, indicates that non-potable water systems should only be used to supply toilets and underground irrigation systems, collecting rainwater with roof gutters is included as a form of greywater. Health Canada has published a guideline to use greywater for toilet flushing and British Columbia's building code includes subsurface irrigation with greywater. In Alberta "wastewater from any source cannot be used inside buildings" Saskatchewan also treats greywater as sewage.
List of river basins in the United States
These are the major U.S. river basins in the U.S., as designated by the U.S. Water Resources Council. Each of these river basins contain a number of smaller river basins.
Ocean Networks Canada
Saanich Inlet, at the southern end of Vancouver Island, Canada, is a naturally hypoxic basin. A shallow sill (70 m) at the mouth isolates the deep basin (215 m) that experiences seasonal deep-water anoxia as a result of high primary productivity and subsequent degradation of sedimented organic matter. The Saanich Inlet network consists of cabled arrays of instruments in Mill Bay, Patricia Bay and an autonomous mooring at the entrance (sill) to the inlet. Two cabled surface buoys are connected to the Patricia Bay installation, supporting a technology testbed facility (Patricia Bay) and a full water column observation station (Coles Bay). Patricia Bay installations include:
Drainage system (geomorphology)
A deranged drainage system is a drainage system in drainage basins where there is no coherent pattern to the rivers and lakes. It happens in areas where there has been much geological disruption. The classic example is the Canadian Shield. During the last ice age, the topsoil was scraped off, leaving mostly bare rock. The melting of the glaciers left land with many irregularities of elevation and a great deal of water to collect in the low points, explaining the large number of lakes which are found in Canada. The drainage basins are young and are still sorting themselves out. Eventually the system will stabilize.
Houseboat
In Canada, houseboats are gaining popularity in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec as there is an abundance of perfectly suited rivers and lakes for houseboaters to enjoy. Houseboats in Canada are generally motorised and used recreationally, rather than as a permanent dwelling; this is mainly due to cold winter temperatures and accompanying frozen waterways. The Rideau Canal system is a historic waterway known for its picturesque setting and quaint villages. The town of Sicamous, on Shuswap Lake, British Columbia, is said to be the "Houseboat Capital of the World". Float houses are relatively common along the Pacific coast. A "float" is a raft, raft-like construction or flat bottom boat.
Water supply and sanitation in Canada
Metro Vancouver's water system is one of the largest in North America. Almost 600 square kilometers of mountainous land is closed to public access to protect the large reservoirs which collect rain and snow melt. 
Three watersheds - the Capilano, Seymour and Coquitlam Watersheds are the water source for more than two million residents in the most populated urban region of British Columbia. Each watershed supplies about one-third of the region’s tap water. The regional district’s long-standing closed watershed policy is one component of a water supply system that provides multiple barriers to contamination, from source to tap.
Columbia River drainage basin
Usage of the term "Columbia Basin" in British Columbia generally refers only to the immediate basins of the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers and excludes that of the Okanagan, Kettle and Similkameen Rivers.
Transportation in Canada
Pipelines are part of the energy extraction and transportation network of Canada and are used to transport natural gas, natural gas liquids, crude oil, synthetic crude and other petroleum based products. Canada has of pipeline for transportation of crude and refined oil, and for liquefied petroleum gas.
Geography of Canada
Canada’s two longest rivers are the Mackenzie, which empties into the Arctic Ocean and drains a large part of northwestern Canada, and the St. Lawrence, which drains the Great Lakes and empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Mackenzie is over in length while the St. Lawrence is over in length. Rounding out the ten longest rivers within Canada are the Nelson, Churchill, Peace, Fraser, North Saskatchewan, Ottawa, Athabasca and Yukon rivers.
Icebreaker
In Canada, the government needed to provide a way to prevent flooding due to ice jam on the St. Lawrence River. Icebreakers were built in order to maintain the river free of ice jam, east of Montréal. In about the same time, Canada had to fill its obligations in the Canadian Arctic. Large steam icebreakers, like the (1930) and (1952), were built for this dual use (St. Lawrence flood prevention and Arctic replenishment).
Partridge Lake (BC-Yukon)
Partridge Lake is a lake in the Yukon and British Columbia, Canada that is part of the Bering Sea drainage basin. The primary inflow, at the south, and outflow, at the north, is the Partridge River, which flows via Bennett Lake, the Nares River, Tagish Lake, the Tagish River and the Yukon River to the Bering Sea. A secondary inflow, at the southwest, is Jones Creek.
Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies are noted for being the source of several major river systems, and also for the many rivers within the range itself. The Rockies form the divide between the Pacific Ocean drainage on the west and that of Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean on the east. Of the range's rivers, only the Peace River penetrates the range. Notable rivers originating in the Canadian Rockies include the Fraser, Columbia, North Saskatchewan, Bow and Athabasca Rivers.
Rainwater Basin
Starks first recognized that the larger of these basins are approximately elliptical to elongate in shape. The larger and semi-elliptical of these basins typically measure about by . Most basins are closed depressions that hold runoff from the surrounding landscape to form seasonal lakes and wetlands in them. Some of these basins have been naturally "breached", or drain to an outside watershed, and no longer hold precipitation run-off. Many of the large semi-elliptical to elliptical Rainwater Basins have a crescent-shaped ridge that Stark referred to as a "lunette" located on the southeast side of them. These distinctive ridges are about in relief.
Striped bass
In Canada there are no landlocked striped bass, but a large number of bass overwinter in Grand Lake, Nova Scotia. They migrate out in early April into the Shubenacadie River to spawn. These bass also spawn in the Stewiacke River (a tributary of the Shubenacadie). The Shubenacadie River system is one of five known spawning areas in Canada for striped bass, with the others being the St. Lawerence River, Miramichi River, Saint John River, Annapolis River and Shubenacadie/Stewiacke Rivers.
Okanagan Basin
The Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network considers the Okanagan Basin to be the most arid watershed in Canada, with an urgent need for effective water management. The Okanagan Basin Water Board was established more than 35 years ago, to provide leadership on regional water issues, taking a basin-wide perspective and seeking collaborative solutions.
Tunnel valley
Tunnel valleys are typically eroded into bedrock and filled with glacial debris of varying sizes. This configuration makes them excellent at capturing and storing water. Hence they serve an important role as aquifers across much of Northern Europe, Canada and the United States. Examples include Oak Ridges Moraine Aquifer, Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, Mahomet Aquifer, the Saginaw Lobe Aquifer, and the Corning Aquifer.
List of drainage basins of South Africa
A drainage basin is an extent of land where water from rain and melting snow or ice drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea or ocean. The drainage basin includes both the streams and rivers that convey the water as well as the land surfaces from which water drains into those channels, and is separated from adjacent basins by a drainage divide.
Drainage basin
Drainage basins are important in ecology. As water flows over the ground and along rivers it can pick up nutrients, sediment, and pollutants. With the water, they are transported towards the outlet of the basin, and can affect the ecological processes along the way as well as in the receiving water source.
Murray–Darling basin
These waters are divided into four types:The two principal rivers of the basin, the Murray and Darling, bring water from the high ranges of the east and carry it west then south through long flat and dry inland areas. Nevertheless, these waters are subject to major diversions for municipal drinking supplies and irrigated agriculture that began in the 1890s. Currently, 4 major reservoirs, 14 lock and weir structures, and five coastal barrages interject the water flowing down the Murray-Darling. Of the approximately of flow in the basin, which studies have shown to be divertible, are removed for irrigation, industrial use, and domestic supply. Agricultural irrigation accounts for about 95 percent of the water removed, including for the growing of rice and cotton. This extraction is highly controversial among scientists in Australia, regarding the agriculture industry's high water use in a region extremely short of water (as much due to exceptionally low run-off coefficients as to low rainfall). These extensive irrigation systems require a reliable supply of water, not the unpredictable flows that characterize the Murray-Darling. These structures and irrigation implements were ideal when there was a steady flow of water. However, during “the Big Dry,” as the early 2000s drought came to be known, Australian farmers experienced a scarcity unlike ever before. The drought was so severe that numerous rivers and streams such as the Murray-Darling stopped flowing. The basin contains more than 30,000 wetlands. Eleven of these are protected under the Ramsar Convention of Wetlands of International Importance.
Kootenay River
The Columbia Basin is noted for its spring floods, major flood years were 1876, 1894, 1948 and 1964. As recently as the mid-1960s, the upper Columbia and Kootenay rivers in British Columbia were still free-flowing and unaffected by dams and reservoirs, resulting in the 1948 Vanport Oregon flood. The uncontrolled discharge past the Canada-U.S. border created problems for electricity generation in the US, and Canada also wanted to utilize the Columbia river for the production of hydroelectric power. Negotiated in 1961 between the governments of the two countries, the Columbia River Treaty attempted to ratify these problems. Construction of the first three of the four dams authorized by the treaty—Mica, Keenleyside and Duncan—was implemented in 1964. Of the four dams, the first two are on the Columbia, the third is on the Duncan River, a tributary of the Kootenay, and the fourth Libby, on the Kootenay River proper. However, operation of the dams has led to environmental problems in both rivers because they have caused unnatural flow fluctuations, blocked fish migration, flooded fertile agricultural land, and forced over 2,000 people to relocate.
Geography of Canada
Canada holds vast reserves of water: its rivers discharge nearly 9% of the world's renewable water supply, it contains a quarter of the world's wetlands, and it has the third largest amount of glaciers (after Antarctica and Greenland). Because of extensive glaciation, Canada hosts more than two million lakes: of those that are entirely within Canada, more than 31,000 are between in area, while 563 are larger than .
Missouri River
To the north, the much lower Laurentian Divide separates the Missouri River watershed from those of the Oldman River, a tributary of the South Saskatchewan River, as well as the Souris, Sheyenne, and smaller tributaries of the Red River of the North. All of these streams are part of Canada's Nelson River drainage basin, which empties into Hudson Bay. There are also several large endorheic basins between the Missouri and Nelson watersheds in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Minnesota and Des Moines Rivers, tributaries of the upper Mississippi, drain most of the area bordering the eastern side of the Missouri River basin. Finally, on the south, the Ozark Mountains and other low divides through central Missouri, Kansas and Colorado separate the Missouri watershed from those of the White River and Arkansas River, also tributaries of the Mississippi River.
Drainage basin
The following is a list of the major ocean basins:
Petitcodiac River
Six species have disappeared from the river since the mid-1980s. The Petitcodiac River was the only known Canadian habitat of the dwarf wedgemussel, and was later isolated to just nine American watersheds after its elimination from the Petitcodiac. The Atlantic salmon is no longer present in the watershed, and has since been listed as an endangered species in Canada. The American shad was a favourite with fishermen, and represented two-thirds of the entire Canadian shad landings from 1870 to 1900; catches peaked at  million kilograms (two to six million pounds) per year. Three other species have been eliminated from the river: the striped bass, the Atlantic sturgeon, and the Atlantic tomcod. However, a project of the Petitcodiac Riverkeeper, funded by the Government of Canada's Environmental Damage Fund in 2005, noted that the removal of the causeway would result in a "good" chance of bringing back the eliminated species, and an "excellent" chance of increasing the numbers of species deemed to have been reduced in numbers. No data has been released for the Atlantic salmon or the striped bass.
List of Hudson Bay rivers
This list of Hudson Bay rivers includes the principal rivers draining into the Hudson, James and Ungava bays of the Arctic Ocean. The total surface area of the Hudson Bay watershed is about , with a mean discharge of about . The drainage basin includes parts of five Canadian provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec), territories (Northwest Territories and Nunavut) and four American states (Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota). The two principal waterways are the La Grande Rivière, in Québec, and the Nelson River in Manitoba, each with an average waterflow of over .
Eastern forest-boreal transition
The ecoregion includes most of the southern Canadian Shield in Ontario and Quebec north and west of the Saint Lawrence River lowlands including the eastern shores of Lake Superior and other areas of the Great Lakes, Lake Timiskaming, the southern Laurentian Mountains, Lake Nipissing, Quebec City, the Saguenay River and parts of Georgian Bay, Greater Sudbury/North Bay, Ontario, Saguenay, Quebec, the Clay Belt and Temagami in Ontario. There is a separate section of the ecoregion in the Adirondack Mountains in upper New York State, United States. However the higher elevations of the Laurentian Mountains and the northern Appalachian Mountains in Canada constitute the Eastern Canadian forests ecoregion.
Water resources management in Guatemala
The hydrographic system is divided into three primary drainage basins. First, the Pacific Ocean drainage basin covers 22% of the country and counts 18 watersheds. Some of the rivers in this zone transport volcanic sediments to be deposited along the coast and contributes to coastal flooding due to reduced depths of tidal marshes. Annual surface runoff in this basin is 25.5 km. The Caribbean Sea drainage basin covers 31% of the country and has 10 watersheds. Average annual surface runoff in this basin is calculated at 31.9 km. The Gulf of Mexico basin covers 47% of Guatemala and 10 watersheds. The rivers in this basin have the largest flows in the country and drain towards Mexico. Surface runoff in this basin is 43.3 km.
Hydraulic fracturing in Canada
In 2013, the Fort Nelson First Nation, a remote community in northeastern B.C. with 800 community members, expressed frustration with royalties associated with gas produced through hydraulic fracturing in their territory. Three of British Columbia's four shale-gas reserves – the Horn River, Liard and Cordova Basins are on their lands. "Those basins hold the key to BC's LNG ambitions."
The Bakken shale oil and gas boom underway since 2009, driven by hydraulic fracturing technologies, has contributed to record growth, high employment rates and increase in population, in the province of Saskatchewan. Hydraulic fracturing has benefited small towns like Kindersley which saw its population increase to over 5,000 with the boom. Kindersley sells its treated municipal wastewater to oilfield service companies to use in hydraulic fracturing. As the price of oil dropped dramatically in late 2014 partially in response to the shale oil boom, towns like Kindersley became vulnerable.
Geography of Canada
The continental divide in the Rockies separates the Pacific watershed in British Columbia and Yukon from the Arctic and Hudson Bay watersheds. This watershed irrigates the agriculturally important areas of inner British Columbia (such as the Okanagan and Kootenay valleys), and is used to produce hydroelectricity. Major elements are the Yukon, Columbia and Fraser rivers.
Interbasin transfer
Characteristics of major existing interbasin transfers and other large-scale water transfers to alleviate water scarcity
In Canada, sixteen interbasin transfers have been implemented for hydropower development. The most important is the James Bay Project from the Caniapiscau River and the Eastmain River into the La Grande River, built in the 1970s. The water flow was reduced by 90% at the mouth of the Eastmain River, by 45% where the Caniapiscau River flows into the Koksoak River, and by 35% at the mouth of the Koksoak River. The water flow of the La Grande River, on the other hand, was doubled, increasing from 1,700 m³/s to 3,400 m³/s (and from 500 m³/s to 5,000 m³/s in winter) at the mouth of the La Grande River. Other interbasin transfers include:The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in the USA, which serves to divert polluted water from Lake Michigan.
Great Lakes Waterway
Its principal civil engineering works are the Welland Canal between Lakes Ontario and Erie, and the huge Soo Locks between Huron and Superior. Dredged channels were constructed in the St. Marys River, the Detroit River, Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River between Huron and Erie. Usually, one or more U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers help keep the water passage open for part of the fall and early winter, although shipping usually ceases for two to three months thereafter. The Great Lakes Waterway is co-administered by the governments of Canada and the United States of America.
Drainage basin
Because drainage basins are coherent entities in a hydro-logical sense, it has become common to manage water resources on the basis of individual basins. In the U.S. state of Minnesota, governmental entities that perform this function are called "watershed districts". In New Zealand, they are called catchment boards. Comparable community groups based in Ontario, Canada, are called conservation authorities. In North America, this function is referred to as "watershed management".
In Brazil, the National Policy of Water Resources, regulated by Act n° 9.433 of 1997, establishes the drainage basin as the territorial division of Brazilian water management.
Rainy Lake
Rainy Lake (French: "lac à la Pluie"; Ojibwe: "gojiji-zaaga'igan") is a relatively large freshwater lake () straddling the border between the United States and Canada. The Rainy River issues from the west side of the lake and is harnessed to make hydroelectricity for US and Canadian locations. The sister cities of International Falls, Minnesota, and Fort Frances, Ontario, are situated on either side of the outflow of the river from the lake. Rainy Lake and Rainy River establish part of the boundary between the US state of Minnesota and the Canadian province of Ontario.
Tar Sands Healing Walk
Canada is home to two of the three largest dams in the world. They are used to hold back toxic sludge from the oil sands. 11 million litres of toxic wastewater seep out of the tailing pits into the boreal forest and Athabasca river every day. That is 4 billion litres a year. Air pollutant guidelines in Alberta are less stringent than international standards. Despite that, air quality objectives were exceeded 1,556 times in 2009, up from 47 times in 2004.
Lakeland Provincial Park and Recreation Area
The Lakeland area straddles two drainage basins, and is thus drained by two major river systems, the Athabasca and the Beaver-Churchill. The Athabasca River drainage basin is the second largest drainage basin in Alberta. It drains 5 of the major lakes in the north-west section of the Lakeland area, including Blackett, Dabbs, Kinnaird, and McGuffin lakes, which all flow into Jackson Lake. Jackson Lake is drained by Gull Creek, which ultimately flows into the Piche River, which in turn joins the Owl River, then Lac La Biche, the La Biche River, and ultimately, into the Athabasca River and on to the Arctic Ocean.
Fauna of Canada
Canada's rivers are famous for their annual runs of Atlantic salmon on the east coast and Pacific salmon on the west coast. Canada's many freshwater lakes and streams are home to rainbow trout, Arctic char, and brook trout. In the past, invasive species such as the lamprey and zebra mussel have threatened these native species, and while efforts to combat them have been made they still remain a hazard in some areas, and there are ongoing effort to prevent the spread of Asian carp from the United States.
There are also significant commercial fisheries of many salt-water species, including Atlantic cod, haddock and halibut, although some of these are in decline.
Western Canada
The Canadian Rockies are part of a major continental divide that extends north and south through western North America and western South America. The continental divide also defines much of the border between Alberta and British Columbia. The Columbia and the Fraser Rivers have their headwaters in the Canadian Rockies and are the second- and third-largest rivers, respectively, to drain to the west coast of North America. To the west of their headwaters, across the Rocky Mountain Trench, is a second belt of mountains, the Columbia Mountains, comprising the Selkirk, Purcell, Monashee and Cariboo Mountains sub-ranges.
Rideau Falls
The Rideau Falls are two waterfalls located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where the Rideau River empties into the Ottawa River. The falls are divided by Green Island, with Ottawa's Old City Hall just to the south. To the west of the falls is the headquarters of the National Research Council while to the east are the Canada and the World Pavilion and the French Embassy. The falls were named by the early French for their resemblance to a curtain, or "rideau" in French. The Rideau River was later named after the falls. The Rideau Canal was constructed to bypass these falls and the Hog's Back Falls.
Drainage basin
Other terms used interchangeably with "drainage basin" are catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, and water basin. In North America, the term watershed is commonly used to mean a drainage basin, though in other English-speaking countries, it is used only in its original sense, that of a drainage divide.
Missouri water resource region
This region includes the drainage within the United States of: (a) the Missouri River Basin, (b) the Saskatchewan River Basin, and (c) several small closed basins. Includes all of Nebraska and parts of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
Boreal forest of Canada
Canada's boreal landscape contains more lakes and rivers than any comparably sized landmass on earth. It has been estimated that the boreal region contains over 1.5 million lakes with a minimum surface area of 40,000 square metres as well as some of Canada's largest lakes. Soft water lakes predominate in central and eastern Canada and hard water lakes predominate in Western Canada. Most large boreal lakes have cold water species of fish like trout and whitefish, while in warmer waters, species may include northern pike, walleye and smallmouth bass.
Water supply and sanitation in Canada
The water supply of Montréal is taken from lac Saint-Louis, lac des Deux-Montagnes, Rivière des Prairies and the St. Lawrence River. This water is then treated in seven plants with a daily capacity of 2,917,000 m³ for 1.8 million residents and industries, businesses and institutions. The river receives untreated liquid waste from metropolitan Montreal and the newly developed suburbs by way of over 150 discharge outlets. Whenever there is significant rainfall on the island of Montreal, household sewage is mixed with the city street rainwater and discharged untreated into the river.
The Rivière des Prairies used to receive massive discharges of untreated waste water from the city, turning it into essentially an open sewer; however, ecological intervention and modern waste water treatment mostly reversed the damage and the river is often considered clean by the RSMA(Réseau de suivi du milieu aquatique), and suitable for swimming. A CAN$10 billion investment program is underway in Montreal to upgrade water treatment plants, to replace ageing water pipes and to install roughly 23,000 meters for industries, businesses and institutions until 2013.
Okanagan Basin
The Okanagan Basin spans two countries and comprises the basin of Okanagan Lake, the Okanogan River and tributary valleys such as that of the Similkameen and Chelan Rivers. In Canada the basin constitutes two distinct regions within British Columbia, the Similkameen Country to the west and the main Okanagan region running from the communities of Osoyoos in the south to Armstrong in the north – incorporating most of the three Okanagan regional districts and is usually known as "the Okanagan" or as the Okanagan Valley or the Okanagan Country. In the United States, the Okanogan Country is the western, lowland core of Okanogan County, which like its Canadian counterpart has a history and economy based on ranching, gold, fruit orcharding and vineyards, but the basin includes Lake Chelan and other flanking valleys. Communities in Washington's Okanogan Basin include Pateros, Omak, Okanogan, Oroville and Brewster.
Columbia River
Most of the Columbia's drainage basin (which, at , is about the size of France) lies roughly between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Cascade Mountains on the west. In the United States and Canada the term watershed is often used to mean drainage basin. The term "Columbia Basin" is used to refer not only to the entire drainage basin but also to subsets of the river's full watershed, such as the relatively flat and unforested area in eastern Washington bounded by the Cascades, the Rocky Mountains, and the Blue Mountains. Within the watershed are diverse landforms including mountains, arid plateaus, river valleys, rolling uplands, and deep gorges. Grand Teton National Park lies in the watershed, as well as parts of Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, and North Cascades National Park. Canadian National Parks in the watershed include Kootenay National Park, Yoho National Park, Glacier National Park, and Mount Revelstoke National Park. Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge in North America, and the Columbia Gorge are in the watershed. Vegetation varies widely, ranging from western hemlock and western redcedar in the moist regions to sagebrush in the arid regions. The watershed provides habitat for 609 known fish and wildlife species, including the bull trout, bald eagle, gray wolf, grizzly bear, and Canada lynx.
Central Asian Internal Drainage Basin
The Central Asian Internal Drainage Basin or Central Asian Inland Basin is the largest of 3 major hydrological basins that cover Mongolia (cf. Arctic Drainage Basin & Pacific Drainage Basin). It is an endorheic basin.
List of rivers of Manitoba
The entire province of Manitoba is within the Hudson Bay drainage basin:
Canada Basin
The Canada Basin is a deep oceanic basin within the Arctic Ocean. It is part of the Amerasian Basin.
Okanagan Basin Water Board
Water is one of the most precious and important natural assets in the Okanagan Basin. Even though the Basin is endowed with several large lakes, the supply of clean, reliable water is inherently limited by the semi-arid to arid climate, which brings minimal precipitation and high evaporation and evapotranspiration rates. In fact, according to Statistics Canada the Okanagan Basin has the lowest, per capita availability of fresh water in Canada. Water shortages have already occurred in some areas of the Basin, and are expected to occur more widely and frequently in the future.
Borders of Canada
The border begins at the northwesternmost point of Minnesota's Northwest Angle 49°23′N, 95°09′W, and proceeds in an easterly direction through the Angle Inlet into the Lake of the Woods. At 41°19′N, 94°48′W in the Lake of the Woods, the border turns to a southerly direction, and continues into the Rainy River. The border then follows the Rainy River to Rainy Lake, then subsequently through numerous small lakes, including Lake Namakan, Lac la Croix, and Sea Gull Lake, until reaching the Pigeon River, which leads it out into Lake Superior. The border continues through Lake Superior to Whitefish Bay. The border then proceeds through Whitefish Bay into the St. Mary's River, then into the North Channel, then, at 45°59′N 83°26′N, turns to a southerly direction into the False Detour Channel, and reaches Lake Huron. The border then heads in a southerly direction through Lake Huron until reaching the St. Clair River, which subsequently leads it to Lake St. Clair. The border then proceeds through Lake St. Clair, reaching the Detroit River, which leads it to Lake Erie. The border then proceeds through Lake Erie into the Niagara River, which leads into Lake Ontario. The border then proceeds in a northwesterly direction in Lake Ontario, then at 43°27′N, 79°12′W, the border makes a sharp turn to a north easterly direction. The border then reaches and proceeds through the St. Lawrence River. Finally, at 45°00′N, 74°40′E, the border splits from the St. Lawrence River and continues into Quebec. This border, going from west to east, is shared with the U.S. states of Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
Great Recycling and Northern Development Canal
In his GCNA proposal, Kierans asserts that experience in the Netherlands demonstrates that a large new freshwater source can be created in Canada's James Bay by collecting runoff from many adjacent river basins in a sea level, outflow-only dyke-enclosure. The project would capture and make available for recycling the entire outflows of the La Grande, Eastmain, Rupert, Broadback, Nottaway, Harricana, Moose, Albany, Kapiskau, Attawapiskat and Ekwan rivers.
Moreover, Kierans claims that the California Aqueduct proves that runoff to James Bay can be beneficially recycled long distances and over high elevations via the GRAND Canal. The GCNA would stabilize water levels in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River and improve water quality. The GRAND Canal system would also deliver new fresh water from the James Bay dyke-enclosure, via the Great Lakes, to many water deficit areas in Canada and the United States. The project was estimated in 1994 to cost C$100 billion to build and a further C$1 billion annually to operate, involving a string of nuclear reactors and hydroelectric dams to pump water uphill and into other water basins.
List of dams and reservoirs in Canada
This is a list of dams and water reservoirs in Canada.
"See Manitoba Hydro generating stations"
Large hydroelectric:Small HydroelectricNon hydroelectric
Planned Upgrades or Projects (all are currently in progress):Hydroelectric generation under development with Ontario Power Generation (the unit in-service dates range from 2009 to 2012):
"See SaskPower generating stations"
Pend Oreille River
The Pend Oreille River ( ) is a tributary of the Columbia River, approximately long, in northern Idaho and northeastern Washington in the United States, as well as southeastern British Columbia in Canada. In its passage through British Columbia its name is spelled Pend-d'Oreille River. It drains a scenic area of the Rocky Mountains along the U.S.-Canada border on the east side of the Columbia. The river is sometimes defined as the lower part of the Clark Fork, which rises in western Montana. The river drains an area of , mostly through the Clark Fork and its tributaries in western Montana and including a portion of the Flathead River in southeastern British Columbia. The full drainage basin of the river and its tributaries accounts for 43% of the entire Columbia River Basin above the confluence with the Columbia. The total area of the Pend Oreille basin is just under 10% of the entire Columbia Basin. Box Canyon Dam is currently underway on a multimillion-dollar project for a fish ladder.
Drainage basin
The five largest river basins (by area), from largest to smallest, are the basins of the Amazon (7M km), the Congo (4M km), the Nile (3.4M km), the Río de la Plata (3.2M km), and the Mississippi (3M km). The three rivers that drain the most water, from most to least, are the Amazon, Ganga, and Congo rivers.
Montreal River (Saskatchewan)
The Montreal River is a river in Census Division No. 18, Saskatchewan, Canada. It flows from Montreal Lake to Lac la Ronge, and is part of the Churchill River and Hudson Bay drainage basins.
Columbia River drainage basin
Residents of the area surrounding the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers—a region centering on the Tri-Cities, Washington metropolitan area—use the term "Columbia Basin" to refer to their own, much smaller region. This usage is roughly synonymous with the Columbia Plateau or roughly equivalent to the relatively unforested area bounded by the Cascades, Blue, Wallowa, and Rocky mountain ranges and the Okanagan Highland. This sense of the term Columbia Basin has expanded from its early focus on the land irrigated by Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Project to include other irrigation districts such as the Yakima and Walla Walla valleys. At its center is the Pasco Basin, an area roughly double the size of, and fully containing, the Hanford Site.
Arsenic Lake (Temagami)
Arsenic Lake is a lake in the Ottawa River drainage basin in Strathy Township of Temagami, Nipissing District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada, located between the town of Temagami and Temagami North near Highway 11. It is the only officially named Arsenic Lake in Canada.
List of canals of Canada
Canada has a number of canals, including some ship canals. Most are located in eastern Canada, namely in Ontario, Quebec, and three in Nova Scotia. Seton Canal is located in British Columbia and is mostly a diversion channel.
Mackenzie River
The Mackenzie drainage basin is bordered by multiple major North American watersheds. Much of the western edge of the Mackenzie basin runs along the Continental Divide. The divide separates the Mackenzie watershed from that of the Yukon River, which flows to the Bering Strait; and the Fraser River and Columbia River systems, both of which empty into the Pacific Ocean. Lowland divides in the north separate the Mackenzie basin from the Arctic Ocean watersheds of the Anderson, Horton, Coppermine and Back Rivers. In the east, the Mackenzie borders on the Hudson Bay watersheds of the Thelon and Churchill Rivers, and to the south it is bordered by the Saskatchewan–Nelson River system, which also empties into Hudson Bay. The Mackenzie system is hydrologically connected to the Hudson Bay watershed via Wollaston Lake, which is not only the source of the Fond du Lac tributary of Lake Athabasca, but also of the Cochrane River, which flows east into the Churchill River.
Geography of Canada
The northern parts of Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia, most of Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and parts of Yukon are drained by the Arctic watershed. This watershed has been little used for hydroelectricity, with the exception of the Mackenzie River, the longest river in Canada. The Peace, Athabasca and Liard Rivers, as well as Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake (respectively the largest and second largest lakes wholly enclosed by Canada) are significant elements of the Arctic watershed. Each of these elements eventually merges with the Mackenzie, thereby draining the vast majority of the Arctic watershed.
Mackenzie River
Through its many tributaries, the Mackenzie River basin covers portions of five Canadian provinces and territories – British Columbia (BC), Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Northwest Territories. Thutade Lake, in the Northern Interior of BC, is the ultimate source of the Mackenzie River via the Finlay–Peace River system, which stretches through BC and Alberta. The Athabasca River originates further south, in Jasper National Park in southwest Alberta. Together, the Peace and Athabasca rivers drain a significant portion of the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and the central Alberta prairie. The Peace contributes the majority of the water, about 66 km (54 million acre-feet) per year, and the Athabasca contributes 25 km (20 million acre-feet).
Pollution in Canada
Pollution of the Great Lakes, the world’s biggest bodies of fresh water, continue to be a significant problem for both Canada and the United States. According to Derek Stack, executive director of Great Lakes United, "High pollution levels in the Great Lakes basin continue to take an apparent toll on the air and water quality of the ecosystem." 
In 2002, it was reported that the Great Lakes basin was home to 45% of all toxic air pollution in Canada, in turn affecting the Great Lakes' water. An even more recent report suggests that the Alberta oil sands' impact could reach as far as the Great Lakes. The report warns that "[oil] refineries will be using the Great Lakes ‘as a cheap supply’ source for their copious water needs and the area’s air ‘as a pollution dump'."
Water distribution on Earth
Most lakes are in very inhospitable regions such as the glacial lakes of Canada, Lake Baikal in Russia, Lake Khövsgöl in Mongolia, and the African Great Lakes. The North American Great Lakes, which contain 21% of the world's fresh water by volume, are the exception. They are located in a hospitable region, which is heavily populated. The Great Lakes Basin is home to 33 million people. The Canadian cities of Toronto, Hamilton, Ontario, St. Catharines, Niagara, Oshawa, Windsor, and Barrie, and the United States cities of Duluth, Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Rochester, are all located on shores of the Great Lakes.
List of lakes of Alberta
As with other basins on the planet, the topographical highlights in the drainage divides between these basins can be difficult to discern. For example, there is little elevation change in the short of land between Lac la Biche and Beaver Lake, yet the former is in a watershed that drains north into the Arctic Ocean, while the latter is in a watershed that drains east into Hudson Bay.
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is any area of land where precipitation collects and drains off into a common outlet, such as into a river, bay, or other body of water. The drainage basin includes all the surface water from rain runoff, snowmelt, and nearby streams that run downslope towards the shared outlet, as well as the groundwater underneath the earth's surface. Drainage basins connect into other drainage basins at lower elevations in a hierarchical pattern, with smaller sub-drainage basins, which in turn drain into another common outlet.
Rainy Lake (Moira drainage basin)
Rainy Lake is a lake in the Moira River and Lake Ontario drainage basins in Addington Highlands, Lennox and Addington County, Ontario, Canada.
Technological and industrial history of 21st-century Canada
Geological formations of shale gas are being explored as a new source of energy. A technique known as horizontal drilling is used to create a horizontal bore hole, through a formation. Water under high pressure is then pumped into the bore hole where it fractures the shale and allows the gas to escape the rock and seep up the bore hole. There are a number of shale gas fields in Canada including the Shallow Colorado basin in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Bakken, in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Antrim in Southern Ontario and the Utica in south east Quebec. The technique is not without problems for the fracturing can affect aquifers causing contamination and deviation. To date efforts at production in Canada have been limited to exploratory wells.
Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
The Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) is a vast sedimentary basin underlying of Western Canada including southwestern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories. It consists of a massive wedge of sedimentary rock extending from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Canadian Shield in the east. This wedge is about thick under the Rocky Mountains, but thins to zero at its eastern margins. The WCSB contains one of the world's largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas and supplies much of the North American market, producing more than per day of gas in 2000. It also has huge reserves of coal. Of the provinces and territories within the WCSB, Alberta has most of the oil and gas reserves and almost all of the oil sands.
Rideau Canal
The Rideau Canal, also known unofficially as the Rideau Waterway, connects Canada's capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, to Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston, Ontario. It is 202 kilometres in length. The name "Rideau", French for "curtain", is derived from the curtain-like appearance of the Rideau River's twin waterfalls where they join the Ottawa River. The canal system uses sections of two rivers, the Rideau and the Cataraqui, as well as several lakes. The Rideau Canal is operated by Parks Canada.
List of dams in the Columbia River watershed
There are more than 60 dams in the Columbia River watershed in the United States and Canada. Tributaries of the Columbia River and their dammed tributaries, as well as the main stem itself, each have their own list below. The dams are listed in the order as they are found from source to terminus. Many of the dams in the Columbia River watershed were not created for the specific purposes of water storage or flood protection. Instead, the primary purpose of many of these dams is to produce hydroelectricity. As can be seen in the lists, these dams provide many tens of gigawatts of power.
Saint-Charles River
The drainage basin includes six main sub-basins, that are, excluding the Saint-Charles' basin itself:Saint-Charles River's drainage basin also includes many secondary streams including:
Great Basin
The hydrographic Great Basin is a area that drains internally. All precipitation in the region evaporates, sinks underground or flows into lakes (mostly saline). As observed by Fremont, creeks, streams, or rivers find no outlet to either the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. The region is bounded by the Wasatch Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges to the west, and the Snake River Basin to the north. The south rim is less distinct. The Great Basin includes most of Nevada, half of Utah, substantial portions of Oregon and California and small areas of Idaho, Wyoming, and Mexico. The term "Great Basin" is slightly misleading; the region is actually made up of many small basins. The Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake, and the Humboldt Sink are a few of the "drains" in the Great Basin. The Salton Sink is another closed basin within the Great Basin.