1. Empowering Communities to Protect and Celebrate Water

Over the last 24 years, Swim Drink Fish has had the privilege of working with local and global communities to help protect and celebrate their local waters in a number of different ways. 

 Community-Based Water Monitoring

Community-Based Water Monitoring (CBWM) is a tool used by communities to track the health of their local watershed, discover pollution sources, and improve decision-making. Swim Drink Fish has helped community groups band together and create self-sustainable water monitoring initiatives within their communities across the country. 

Swim Drink Fish Staff leading a Water Monitoring demonstration

Our CBWM initiatives began in 2018 when we received funding to launch hubs across Canada. Through this project, we developed a standard operating procedure (SOP) that provided the methodology for how community groups could assess recreational water quality in water bodies they loved and cared about. 

We currently have Hubs operating in Toronto, Kingston, Vancouver, Edmonton and Victoria. 

Open Water Standard

This project also allowed us to create the first open data standard for recreational water quality. In doing this we created the tools and instructions needed for people to automate the data they collected and upload in on the Swim Guide, making the data they collect publicly accessible and allowing it to inform the rest of the community about the local waters. 

Where Are We Now?

Since the launch of our CBWM Hubs, we have grown our set of resources and recently launched our “Toolkit.” The toolkit was designed to provide training resources and materials needed for monitoring water in an accessible and transparent manner. We are also expanding the toolkit's resources by developing new standard operating procedures that adapt the monitoring to be used for Shellfish harvesting and including new add-on modules that cater the monitoring program to the group/site's specific needs. 

A group of people performing routine Water Monitoring

New Tools for CBWM

We are also expanding our definition of CBWM to include those who monitor other water quality parameters such as presence or algae, shoreline erosion, or Aesthetic quality of the site. Swim Drink Fish will be utilizing a tool called VAST (Visual Assessment Survey Tool) which aims to collect different types of water health information through the use of surveys. This is a new way to contribute to the health of your waters in a more accessible manner.