Alberta

General Information

Alberta Environment's Water webpage provides access to information on a number of water-related topic including water policy, legislation and regulation, water management, water quality and quantity, drinking and waste water, publications and education.

There are also numerous sources of water information on the Water for Life webpage which outlines the provincial goals and stategies for managing water resources in Alberta.

Realtime Data / Runoff Forecasts

A variety of real time hydrometric, meteorological and other information can be accessed at Alberta Environment's Alberta's River Basins page, for a number of locations in each of the seven major river basins in Alberta.

This webpage also provides access to the following webpages:

• Advisories and Warnings provides information on forecasts and advisories for high streamflows, flooding and ice jams in rivers and streams.
• River Ice Reports reports ice observations on the Peace and Athabasca and other locations.
• Water Supply Outlook maintains a summary of current snow pack, precipitation, river flows, reservoir storage and soil moisture and their impacts on potential runoff in the plains and mountains.
• Maps and Data Summaries provides reservoir contents and natural flow forecasts at specific locations on the South Saskatchewan River system.

Flood Awareness

The Flood Risk Map Information System site provides available Flood Risk Map information throughout the province. This is achieved using a Geographical Information System (GIS) based site that has the ability to show detail at the street/property level. Sites can be located by inputting a municipality, postal code, lot block plan or legal land description.

Drought Awareness

Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development provides the on-line factsheet: Drought Proofing Farm Water Supplies, that discusses drought proofing farm water supplies. 

Agricultural soil moisture and precipitation conditions are reported on the Agricultural Moisture Situation Update webpage. 

Drainage Boundaries

Alberta Environments's Alberta's River Basins page provides maps of Alberta's seven major drainage basins.

Drainage areas for the delineations of the gross and effective drainage areas for hydrometric gauging stations throughout the Alberta, are available from the AAFC geospacial library.

Surface Water Data and Maps

Information on flows in Alberta's major rivers can be found on Alberta Environment's Alberta's River Basins page.

Alberta Environment's Surface Water Runoff page supplies median annual unit runoff maps for the province of Alberta for select watersheds. The maps are based on the PFRA "Annual Unit Runoff on the Canadian Prairies, Hydrology Report #135", 1994 (PDF). This study evaluated the annual unit runoff for various exceedence levels across the prairies.

Bathymetric surveys of most major lakes in Alberta are available for purchase from Map Town Limited.

Surface Water Quality

The Surface Water Quality Program home page provides a description of water quality conditions in Alberta's lakes, rivers, reservoirs and wetlands. An overview of historic and current data, as well as instructions to obtain more detailed information is also provided.

Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development has a number of publications on various water quality topics including protection, stream monitoring, treatment and watershed level information.

Surface water quality data can be accessed from Alberta Environment's Surface Water Quality Data page.

Reports and Facts Sheets

Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development has a number of publications on water quality and water supply at its Information page.

Topics include:

• Protection of water quality
• Surface Water Quality Monitoring
• Surface Water Treatment
• Water Analysis and Interpretation
• Dugout/dam construction for farm water supplies, maintenance and water treatment.
• Livestock water requirements
• Water Supply Requirements
• Water systems - livestock waterers, pipelines, pumps and related works

Additional information can be found at Alberta Environment's Information Center.