Acid Sensitive Lakes, Oil Sands Region
Acid-Sensitive Lakes
Nine hundred and thirty-three lakes located in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories were sampled to establish current acidification status. Of the 933 lakes, 244 (or 26%) are considered acid sensitive, almost always because of naturally low calcium and magnesium (or "base cation") concentrations. The most acid-sensitive lakes (i.e., those with extremely low base cation concentrations) are located on the Canadian Shield in both Alberta and Saskatchewan and east of the oils sands development area.
Fifty-one of the 244 acid-sensitive lakes were sampled twice annually (spring and fall) to identify chemical changes through trend analyses. Results revealed that 55% of these lakes had concentrations of some metals in excess of Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment guidelines. Of the 291 samples taken in the 51 lakes, iron concentrations were greater than guidelines in 36% (105 samples), aluminum in 33% (97 samples), lead in 0.3% (1 sample) and copper in 0.3% (1 sample). The metals in these lakes occur naturally and are expected to be found in a wide range of concentrations given the geology and physiography of the Canadian Shield. It remains to establish the relationship between acid sensitivity, geology and high metal concentrations.
Basic view
Metadata Record Information
- File Identifier
- dd7f2e18-e1dd-4da3-bb83-ed7bbf7ede20 XML
- Date Stamp
- 2021-07-02T14:37:49
- Metadata language
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eng; CAN
- Character set
- UTF8
- Hierarchy Level
- Series
http://ec.gc.ca
Data identification
- Date (Publication)
- 2014-05-22
- Date (Creation)
- 2014-05-20
- Date (Revision)
- 2016-04-25
- Status
- On going
- Metadata language
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eng; CAN
- Character set
- UTF8
- Topic category
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- Environment
- Maintenance and Update Frequency
- As needed
- Spatial representation type
- Vector
Keywords
- Theme
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oil sands, monitoring, atmospheric deposition, contaminant, acidification, metals, nutrients, major ions, acid sensitivity, water quality
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Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus
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Oil sands
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Lakes
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ECCC Information Category EN
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Water - Quality
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Business Functions
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Assess Toxicity, Manage and Monitor for Environmental Presence of Hazardous Substances and Waste
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Monitor / Assess Substance and Waste Levels in Air, Water, Soil, Biota
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Geography
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Prairie - Alberta (AB)
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Prairie - Saskatchewan (SK)
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Territories - Northwest Territories (NT)
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external.theme.EC_Branch
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Science and Technology Branch
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external.theme.EC_Directorate
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Water Science and Technology
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external.theme.EC_Program_PAA
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1.3.2. Ecosystem Assessment and Approaches
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external.theme.GC_Security_Level
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Unclassified
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- Use Limitation
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Open Government Licence - Canada ( http://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada )
- Access Constraints
- License
- Use Constraints
- License
- Begin Date
- 2012-02-01
Extent
Ref. system Reference Systems
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG / 4326 /
Distribution
http://ec.gc.ca