Potential Impact of Drought to Private Wells

This application was developed to show areas of Nova Scotia where private well owners are more likely to experience water shortages (especially owners of shallow wells). The following criteria was used to develop the map:

1. Severity of existing drought conditions (based on Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Drought Monitor polygons, http://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/292646cd-619f-4200-afb1-8b2c52f984a2)

2. Recent and forecasted precipitation patterns (based on Environment Canada’s predicted precipitation anomaly, past 9 and next 9 days)

3. Proportion of sensitive wells (based on the percentage of dug wells and shallow drilled wells compared to the number of total wells in a given area, source: Nova Scotia Well Logs Database)

4. Concentration of groundwater use (estimated density of private well users, source: Nova Scotia Civic Addressing File and compiled municipal water servicing zones)

Areas of the province with no impact level indicates that there are no private well users in these areas. The potential impact of drought on private wells was developed based on the analysis published in the following conference paper: https://novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/pubs/cs/cs_me_2017-005.pdf