British Columbia Copper Water Quality Guidelines for Aquatic Life

The B.C. copper water quality guideline (WQG) for the protection of aquatic life was updated in 2019 and now uses a biotic ligand model (BLM) to account for site-specific toxicity modifying factors. This dataset provides acute WQGs for various concentrations of pH, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and hardness, enabling look-up without running the BLM software. It is published by the Government of British Columbia and was last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Look up acute copper water quality guidelines based on pH, DOC, and hardness values mentioned in the description
• Assess site-specific copper toxicity thresholds without running the biotic ligand model software
• Support environmental impact assessments for freshwater ecosystems based on modeled water quality parameters

Strengths

• Guidelines are based on a 2019-updated biotic ligand model (BLM) that accounts for site-specific factors.
• Data is provided by the authoritative Government of British Columbia.
• Available in CSV format for straightforward tabular analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Government of British Columbia

Collection Method

Calculated using a biotic ligand model (BLM) for site-specific toxicity modifying factors.

Time Range

Guidelines updated in 2019.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-17 15:27:00.937602; freshness should be verified.

Geography

British Columbia, Canada.