Canada
About this guideline ▾
Canada has three sets of federal water quality guidelines:
the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) Canadian Water Quality Guidelines,
Health Canada's Guidelines for Canadian Recreational Water Quality, and
Environment and Climate Change Canada's Federal Environmental Quality Guidelines (FEQGs).
We use these on the Water Rangers platform to help interpret monitoring data.
Nitrite
Freshwater
| Range | Level | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| ≤ 0.196 mg/L | Met guideline | Long-term freshwater guideline to protect aquatic life |
| ≥ 0.197 mg/L | Exceeds chronic guideline | Chronic exceedances of this threshold impair oxygen transport in fish |
Nitrite is an intermediate form of nitrogen that appears when organic matter breaks down, but is also introduced through agricultural runoff, sewage discharge, and certain industrial processes. At elevated concentrations, nitrite interferes with the ability of fish to carry oxygen in their blood, a condition known as methemoglobinemia or "brown blood disease." The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) sets the long-term freshwater guideline at 60 µg/L measured as nitrite-nitrogen, equivalent to 197 µg/L as nitrite.
https://ccme.ca/en/chemical/143