Improving water data availability for First Nations communities: a brief review

Water quality is a persistent issue in First Nations communities. Due to factors such as isolated locations, limited local economic capacity, and historical underinvestment in infrastructure, water supply on reserves is often prone to equipment malfunctions, chemical shortages, disease outbreaks, or contamination from nearby industrial activities. Addressing such issues and maintaining water security requires reliable, and ideally extensive, data, but such data can be difficult to obtain or may be of inconsistent quality. This review paper examines existing literature on water issues in First Nations communities. It reviews the existing water data availability for First Nations in Canada, identifies additional datasets that may be useful to water studies in First Nations communities, reviews best practices for data collection in First Nations contexts, discusses the sociological and technological challenges faced in such environments, and finally makes recommendations to improve data availability for future studies. The review shows that data on water quality for First Nations communities is often difficult to access due to Indigenous data sovereignty principles, the remote locations of many communities, and limited training on water quality monitoring. Water data availability can be improved by developing a single coherent database and establishing a collaborative network of First Nations engineers to help integrate projects with First Nations worldviews, and adopting co-design as a standard practice to increase the consistency of projects. This study provides valuable perspectives for collaborative research initiatives focused on Indigenous water studies, particularly those grounded in the respectful integration of Indigenous and Western knowledge.