Shellfish harvest area water quality

The Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) program provides data and information to track Canada's performance on key environmental sustainability issues. If unsafe bacterial levels are measured in water samples or if shoreline surveys identify pollution concerns, Environment and Climate Change Canada makes water classification recommendations to its Canadian Shellfish Sanitation Program partners. Fisheries and Oceans Canada opens or closes shellfish harvest areas based on those recommendations. While elements of program operations and implementation have some impact on the results, the indicators track the proportion of shellfish harvest areas that have their water quality classified as approved or conditionally approved and the proportion of samples with fecal coliform levels less than 43 most probable number (MPN) per 100 mL as a coarse measure of the quality of marine coastal water. Information is provided to Canadians in a number of formats including: static and interactive maps, charts and graphs, HTML and CSV data tables and downloadable reports. See the supplementary documentation for the data sources and details on how the data were collected and how the indicator was calculated.

Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators: https://www.canada.ca/environmental-indicators