Maritimes Region

Waterways Management

The Waterways Management program provides an integrated waterway management service in support of marine transportation in Canada. By providing minimum safety guidelines relating to the safe utilization of commercial waterways, the program allows mariners to make conscious decisions on the safe usage of Canadian Commercial Waterways. The program provides depth information, up to date channel information, bottom conditions, notices and advisories etc.

In the Maritimes Region, Waterways Management staff work in combination with the Marine Communications and Traffic Services Program, Aids to Navigation Program and Fleet Operations. Together, they collectively manage channel and ice conditions advising stakeholders of both the condition of the waterway and any operational issues affecting the safe passage of commercial traffic during the open water season and during the periods when navigational routes are ice covered.

The Waterways Development program directly benefits pilotage authorities, masters and captains of commercial and fishing vessels, recreational users of commercial waterways, ports and industries dependent on marine transportation.

Waterways Management Key Roles:

• Application of Channel Design Guidelines
• Channel Monitoring Surveys
• Channel Depth Management
• Channel Utilization Database
• Supporting Technology and Applications
• Provision of Information to Users
• Managing Channel Control Structures
• Industry and OGD Partnerships
• Water Level Control & Forecasts

Waterways Management: Typical Regional Activities

• Routinely issues notices and advisories to shipping on depths and channel information in approximately 21 sites.
• Conducts survey investigations which supplement local knowledge, rectifies charting and operational anomalies and allows the safe marking and usage of commercial channels
• Provide yearly survey services in Shippegan to determine the best water for deployment of seasonal buoys. (I.e. The channel dynamically shifts and must be redefined yearly.)
• Provide yearly surveys and advisory services in the Miramichi.
• Provide cyclic survey and advisory services in other main commercial and secondary channel locations.
• Provides on a cost recovery basis services to Little Narrows Gypsum (LNG)-sweep surveys, position monitoring, and guideline reviews and advisory services etc.

Contact Information:
Superintendent Waterways Management,
Dartmouth, NS
(902) 426-6148

For more information on CCG’s Waterways Management program, go to:
Waterways Management Program