National Hydro Network - NHN - GeoBase Series

The National Hydro Network (NHN) focuses on providing a quality geometric description and a set of basic attributes describing Canada's inland surface waters. It provides geospatial digital data compliant with the NHN Standard such as lakes, reservoirs, watercourses (rivers and streams), canals, islands, drainage linear network, toponyms or geographical names, constructions and obstacles related to surface waters, etc. The best available federal and provincial data are used for its production, which is done jointly by the federal and interested provincial and territorial partners. The NHN is created from existing data at the 1:50 000 scale or better. The NHN data have a great potential for analysis, cartographic representation and display and will serve as base data in many applications. The NHN Work Unit Limits were created based on Water Survey of Canada Sub-Sub-Drainage Area.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field	Value
Last Updated	April 17, 2026, 20:19 (UTC)
Created	April 17, 2026, 20:19 (UTC)
contact_email	geoinfo@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca
contact_person	{"fr": "Gouvernement du Canada; Ressources naturelles Canada;Secteur de la politique stratégique et de l’innovation, Centre canadien de cartographie et d'observation de la Terre, Plateforme géospatiale fédérale, Géobase,geoinfo@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca", "en": "Government of Canada; Natural Resources Canada;Strategic Policy and Innovation Sector, Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, Geobase,,geoinfo@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca"}
criticality_level	[]
data_dictionary	EPSG:4617,http://www.epsg-registry.org,8.6.2
geographic_scope	[]
open_canada_collection	fgp
open_canada_date_published	2016-01-25 00:00:00
open_canada_keywords	{"fr": ["RHN", "GéoBase", "Réseau hydrographique", "Sciences de la terre", "Géographie", "Hydrologie", "Eau", "Réseau", "Hydrographie", "Hydro", "Rivières", "Lacs", "Rivage", "Drainage", "Eau de surface", "Système d'information géographique", "Cartographie", "Données géographiques", "Bassin hydrologique", "Cours d'eau", "Ressources naturelles"], "en": ["NHN", "GeoBase", "Hydrographic Network", "Earth Sciences", "Geography", "Hydrology", "Water", "Network", "Hydrography", "Hydro", "Rivers", "Lakes", "Coastline", "Drainage", "Surface water", "Geographic information systems", "Cartography", "Geographic data", "Watersheds", "Watercourses", "Natural resources"]}
open_canada_subject	["form_descriptors", "nature_and_environment", "science_and_technology"]
sensitivity_level	unrestricted
title_fr	Réseau hydro national - RHN - Série GéoBase
update_frequency	as_needed