Canadian Water Monitoring Program for Pesticides (CWMPP): Surface and Groundwater Samples

A water monitoring program that began with a 2-year pilot and transitioned to full operation in 2024. Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) collects surface and groundwater samples across Canada, analyzing them for more than 200 pesticides and transformation products. The data is intended to inform regulatory decisions and identify potential risks to human health and aquatic organisms.

Use Cases

• Modeling pesticide concentration trends in water based on seasonal sampling frequency.
• Assessing human and aquatic health risks based on detected pesticide levels.
• Correlating pesticide presence with ancillary data like temperature, pH, and cropping information.
• Informing regulatory policy by analyzing real-world pesticide concentrations in Canadian waters.

Strengths

• Analyzes samples for more than 200 pesticides and some transformation products.
• Sampling is conducted twice per week during the growing season at monitored sites.
• Includes ancillary physical-chemical parameters such as temperature, pH, and specific conductance.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The number of sampling sites and locations varies from year to year.

Provenance

Source

Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), with partners including Environment and Climate Change Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Collection Method

Surface water and groundwater samples collected by provincial, federal, and local partners, including Indigenous communities, and analyzed at various federal and external laboratories.

Time Range

Program began with a pilot and transitioned to full operation in 2024.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-27 19:31:05.666412; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Samples collected across Canada.