The Nottaway, together with the Broadback and Rupert Rivers, was initially considered to be dammed and developed as part of the James Bay Project.

But in 1972 hydro-electric development began on the more northerly La Grande and Eastmain Rivers, and the NBR Project was shelved.

With the decision to divert the Rupert River to the La Grande, it is not likely that the Nottaway will be developed in the foreseeable future.

Its drainage basin is 65,800 square kilometres (25,400 sq mi) and has an average discharge of 1,190 cubic metres per second (42,000 cu ft/s).

So when European cartographers started to map the river in the late seventeenth century, they called it "Rivière des Iroquois" (Iroquois River), as shown on maps of Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin in 1699, Guillaume Delisle in 1703, and Jacques-Nicolas Bellin in 1744.