Gabriola's groundwater is mapped and monitored by the Province. Registered wells and monitoring records describe the evidence available; they do not establish sustainable yield or current demand.
This page aggregates mirrored provincial aquifer and GWELLS records for Gabriola Island parcel region. Of 4,047 regional land parcels, enough are linked to 2 aquifers to meet the coverage threshold. These aquifers carry 1,299 well records, 80 of them with provincial water-chemistry data, and 7 provincial observation wells recording long-term water levels.
Counts use stored parcel-region membership. They are not an island-only geographic wells census. Aquifer totals cover each selected aquifer in full, including any area outside the parcel region; selection requires at least 25 parcels or 5% of regional land parcels.
Bedrock — Fractured sedimentary rock; 46.8 km²; mapped 2004. Linked to 2,659 regional land parcels.
Vulnerability High; productivity Low; demand Moderate; quality concern Local.
1,042 wells on record; 2 water licences; 6 artesian; 67 wells with provincial water-chemistry data; 7 provincial observation wells (#195 Inactive, #197 Active, #385 Active, #316 Active, #317 Inactive, #194 Inactive, #196 Active).
Bedrock — Fractured sedimentary rock; 5.9 km²; mapped 2004. Linked to 727 regional land parcels.
Vulnerability High; productivity Low; demand High; quality concern Local.
257 wells on record; 1 artesian; 13 wells with provincial water-chemistry data.
Provincial mapping splits Gabriola into two bedrock aquifers — the main island aquifer and a separate northern one — both fractured sedimentary rock, both rated High vulnerability and Low productivity. The page reports registered wells from the mirrored dataset; these records are not a count of currently operating wells. The northern aquifer is the smaller of the two by area but carries a demand rating of High.
The Province maintains observation wells that record long-term water levels. The mirrored data include monitoring records for Gabriola. Monitoring can reveal changes over time; the number of observation wells is not itself evidence of a water-supply problem, a complete island-wide record, or available capacity for development.
The Gabriola Island Local Trust Area also covers De Courcy, Mudge, Link and Ruxton. The De Courcy Island aquifer is mapped separately, rated High vulnerability with a demand rating of High on a footprint of only a couple of square kilometres.
The Province classifies each mapped aquifer's intrinsic vulnerability — how easily contamination at the surface could reach the water — as Low, Moderate or High, based on factors like depth to water and what covers the aquifer. A High rating means relatively little natural protection between the surface and the water people draw from. It describes susceptibility, not current contamination. Productivity describes how readily the aquifer yields water; demand describes the level of use. These are the Province's classifications, not ours.
Most Gulf and Northern Gulf island aquifers are fractured rock: water sits in cracks in sedimentary or crystalline bedrock rather than in a porous bed of sand and gravel. Fractured-rock aquifers store comparatively little water and move it unevenly, which is why neighbouring wells on the same island can report very different yields, and why the Province rates most of these aquifers Low productivity.
Aquifer boundaries are a toggleable layer on the island map. This page presents provincial data with explanatory context; it makes no claims about individual wells or properties.