Biennial Drinking Water Plants Survey (DKWP)

Detailed information for 2024

The Biennial Drinking Water Plants Survey is conducted to provide Canadians with national and regional information related to the production of drinking water.

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology

Description

The survey is a census of drinking water plants serving 300 or more people, and asks for information on volumes of water treated, type of treatment and financial aspects of the operation. The survey results produce a national portrait of potable water production, treatment processes and costs. These data will be used to track the state of water stocks on a regional basis in Canada, and will also be used in the development of environmental accounts.

Reference period: Calendar year

Collection period: February through June of the year after the reference period (suspended, then resumed from June to September due to the COVID pandemic).

Subjects

• Environment
• Environmental quality
• Natural resources

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population is composed of drinking water treatment plants that are licensed and regulated by provincial/territorial agencies (excluding First Nations communities) and that draw and process source/raw water from the environment to produce treated/potable water for consumption, serving 300 or more people.

The observed population comes from a frame created in 2007. At that time, Statistics Canada requested the inventories of drinking water plants held by the provinces and territories. It excludes systems that supply water to communities with fewer than 300 people and other regulated systems that service schools, campgrounds, commercial establishments, provincial parks, etc. This frame is kept up to date using responses from previous survey cycles and through contact with potential respondents prior to sending out the questionnaire of each new cycle.

Instrument design

Environmental Accounts and Statistics Division, in consultation with the Questionnaire Design Resource Centre, conducted testing of the questionnaire in July, September and October 2007 across Canada which included Atlantic Canada (5 locations), Québec (6 locations), Ontario (7 locations) and Western Canada (6 locations). Working group meetings were held with representatives of Environment Canada and Health Canada and final changes to the questionnaire were made based on the results of the field testing. The revised 2011 questionnaire was tested in both official languages in the fall of 2010 at 9 locations (5 in Ontario and 4 in Québec). The revised 2013 questionnaire was not tested because the only changes made were to remove or restrict the scope of some questions. The revised 2015 questionnaire was tested in both official languages in the summer of 2014 at 19 locations (7 in New Brunswick, 6 in Ontario and 6 in Western Canada).

The 2017 questionnaire was redesigned so that respondents with multiple water treatment facilities can report the combined total of all their facilities in one questionnaire (the exception being owners with facilities in different drainage regions). The revised 2017 questionnaire was tested in both official languages in the autumn of 2016 and winter of 2017 at 17 locations (5 in New Brunswick and 12 in Ontario). In order to align with the Integrated Business Statistics Program, an electronic questionnaire (EQ) was used for the first time for the survey.

The revised 2019 questionnaire was not tested because changes made were minor.

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design.

Data are collected for all units of the target population; therefore, no sampling is done.

Survey frame
The survey frame was created in 2007. At that time, Statistics Canada requested the inventories of drinking water plants held by the Provinces and Territories. The frame is kept up to date using responses from previous survey cycles and through contact with potential respondents prior to sending out the questionnaire of each new cycle.

Excluding systems that supply water to communities with fewer than 300 people and other regulated systems that service schools, camp grounds, commercial establishments, provincial parks, etc., a survey frame of approximately 2,000 drinking water facilities serving communities of 300 or more people was compiled, the majority being public (municipal) systems.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2025-02-12 to 2025-06-19

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and extracted from administrative files.

Data are collected using English and French electronic questionnaires. Respondents are contacted by email or letter and given an access code for the electronic questionnaire for the survey. The questionnaires are addressed to a contact person who is either responsible for, or has knowledge of, the drinking water plants being surveyed.

Telephone and fax follow-up are used to obtain data from respondents who returned incomplete questionnaires or who failed to respond. A capture and edit software are applied to run edit checks on the data, which serve to identify real or potential response errors.

The use of administrative data to replace or complement survey data is a priority for Statistics Canada. Efforts to achieve this goal involve the Survey of Drinking Water Plants where respondents in Québec are not surveyed by Statistics Canada. Instead, the data are collected by an existing survey administered by the Québec ministère des Affaires municipales, des Régions et de l'Occupation du territoire and the results are shared with Statistics Canada in accordance with the Statistics Act. The microdata for Québec respondents are merged and processed with the survey data collected by Statistics Canada.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .