NAICS 22131Industry · 5-digitregional market

Water supply and irrigation systems

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in operating water collection, treatment and distribution systems for domestic and industrial needs. Establishments primarily engaged in operating irrigation systems are included. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 307
Under 10 employeesA: 73%
Establishments · USA: 4,430
Employment · USA: 40,710
Payroll · USA: $3.0B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–413945%

5–98528%

10–193511%

20–493010%

50–9993%

100–19931%

200–49921%

500+41%

Of 307 Canadian establishments with employees, 73% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario8829%

British Columbia8628%

Alberta4414%

Quebec4113%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Utilities, US · opened 2020

84.2%

1 year

69.7%

3 years

61.6%

5 years

47.2%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 221, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

regional competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 221 Utilities

Regulated monopoly or near it. The openings are at the edge — independent generation, water and wastewater operations, services sold to utilities.

Who sets the price: Regulators, through rate cases; merchant generators take the pool price.
The software it runs on: Billing and customer information systems, metering, outage and asset management — long procurement cycles, few vendors.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 2213 Water, sewage and other systems covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 2213

Water, Sewage & Other SystemsOne thing must be true

binding constraint: distribution

Water is the one utility Canadians have decided not to sell. Statistics Canada's inventory of core public infrastructure counts 3,325 water treatment facilities in the country in 2022, of which 2,776 — 84% — belong to municipalities, plus 1,648 wastewater treatment plants in public hands. Against that, this whole industry group has 374 businesses with employees, and 161 of them have one to four. So the asset is not for sale, and the entrant's only product is a service sold into municipal procurement: twelve to twenty-four month cycles, RFP-gated, scored on references an entrant does not have, and awarded by a council that answers to ratepayers rather than to a return. The American comparison shows what the alternative model costs to build. American Water Works, the largest listed water utility in the United States, grew in 2025 by closing 18 separate acquisitions of regulated systems for US$83M in total, adding about 20,900 customers between them — an average of roughly 1,160 customers a system, bought one council vote at a time, on top of a US$5,121M revenue base built over 140 years. Even that pace is now being abandoned for scale: in October 2025 American Water agreed an all-stock merger with Essential Utilities. The business here is aggregation at utility cost of capital, and it is a thirty-year project, not an entry.

NAICS 22135 vendors named12 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Billing and customer information systems, metering, outage and asset management — long procurement cycles, few vendors.

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Utilities, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Electrical, electronics and computer engineers Mostly one sector 8.7%

Technical electrical trades and electrical power line and telecommunications workers Mostly one sector 8.5%

Supervisors, processing and manufacturing occupations Mostly one sector 8.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 6.3%

Civil and mechanical engineers Mostly one sector 4.8%

Water and rail transport operators and labourers and related occupations Mostly one sector 3.5%

Manufacturing and processing engineers Mostly one sector 3.2%

Plumbers, pipefitters and gas fitters One industry 2.4%

Technical occupations in architecture, drafting, surveying, geomatics and meteorology Mostly one sector 2.2%

Managers in engineering, architecture, science and information systems Mostly one sector 2.1%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 5.8%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 4.6%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 1.7%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 1.3%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 1.3%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 1.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 1.2%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 1.2%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 1.1%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 73% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 22131. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
221310	Water supply and irrigation systems	307	screened at 2213

Alongside it, under 2213 Water, sewage and other systems

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
22132	Sewage treatment facilities	46	screened at 2213
22133	Steam and air-conditioning supply	21	screened at 2213