Nova Scotia Lake Water Quality

All 1,018 Nova Scotia lakes in this index carry water-quality measurements from Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change, spread across 18 counties. The newest sample in that record is from 2018, and each lake page shows the date of its own last sample. None of them carries an A–F grade, because no reference condition exists for lakes in this region, so the assessment thresholds behind the A–F scale cannot be applied here.

By surface area the largest lake here is Ainslie Lake, at about 14,173 acres, and 87 of the lakes in this index cover more than 500 acres. Size is worth knowing before you go: a large deep basin buffers nutrient inputs by sheer volume, while a shallow one warms quickly and can turn over its whole water column in a single summer storm.