NorthEast Water Tool (NEWT) is a GIS-based hydrology decision-support tool developed by the BC Oil and Gas Commission (Commission). It provides guidance on water availability across northeast BC, and supports the decision-making process for water use approvals and licenses. The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and Geoscience BC partnered with the Commission on the project.
NEWT is a public-facing application and is available to all British Columbians.
Use of NEWT
NEWT has an underlying hydrological information database that provides estimates of monthly and annual runoff (representing 30-year average or “normal” runoff). In addition, NEWT queries all short-term water use approvals issued by the Commission and all water licenses issued by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. It also estimates environment flow needs, and provides guidance on water availability at a monthly time scale for all rivers and lakes in northeast BC.
Capabilities of NEWT
It will be important to users to understand detail of NEWT: how it was developed; what it uses for underlying data; what it does and what its current limitations are.