Nutrient Inputs and Outputs for the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario

The purpose of this research project is to quantify nitrogen and phosphorus flows through a mixed urban and rural area. There is particular interest to find the ways in which increasing population densities in the Greater Toronto Area are impacting nutrient flows across Southern Ontarios urban/rural continuum and how changing nutrient dynamics may lead to increasingly impaired water quality in Lake Ontario and beyond. This work looks to establish the metabolism of the Greater Toronto Area in 2011 through the analysis of the various inputs and outputs of the system that includes factors such as food consumption, fertilizer usage, crop production, and wastewater treatment plants outputs.This data set is collected for the project titled 'Lake Futures: Enhancing Adaptive Capacity and Resilience of Lakes and Their Watersheds'. Lake Futures is a Pillar 3 project under the Global Water Futures Program funded by Canada First Research Excellence Fund.