Inclusion of groundwater within Canada’s freshwater monitoring

Despite the critical importance of groundwater to Canada’s environment, economy, and citizens, national-scale monitoring is current conducted in a patchwork of programs without national coordination. Groundwater is not meaningfully included in the National Hydrometric Program and is omitted entirely from the Freshwater Quality Monitoring and Surveillance program. We argue that integrating groundwater level (hydraulic head) and quality monitoring into these programs is essential to inform national freshwater reporting, policies, and climate adaptation. We examine (i) the need for the focused inclusion of groundwater monitoring, (ii) the current patchwork of monitoring initiatives, and (iii) a proposed model to integrate groundwater into current freshwater monitoring through shared federal and provincial/territorial roles, coupled with local stakeholder and Indigenous engagement.