The Remote Communities Energy Database is a public resource that provides pertinent factual information about the generation and use of electricity and other energy sources for all remote communities in Canada. Communities are identified as remote communities if they are not currently connected to the North-American electrical grid nor to the piped natural gas network; and is a permanent or long-term (5 years or more) settlement with at least 10 dwellings. The Remote Communities Energy Database is the only national data source on energy in remote communities that is publically available on one centralized site. The Remote Communities Energy Database allows users to search and conduct analyses of remote communities and their energy context. Users are also able download the data from the Remote Communities Energy Database dataset in CSV (i.e., excel compatible) format. This data is collected from a number of sources including the remote communities themselves, local utilities, provincial and territorial government’s, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), Statistics Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and various other stakeholders.

Fire weather refers to weather conditions that are conducive to fire. These conditions determine the fire season, which is the period(s) of the year during which fires are likely to start, spread and do sufficient damage to warrant organized fire suppression. The length of fire season is the difference between the start- and end-of-fire-season dates. These are defined by the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI; http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/) start-up and end dates. Start-up occurs when the station has been snow-free for 3 consecutive days, with noon temperatures of at least 12°C. For stations that do not report significant snow cover during the winter (i.e., less than 10 cm or snow-free for 75% of the days in January and February), start-up occurs when the mean daily temperature has been 6°C or higher for 3 consecutive days. The fire season ends with the onset of winter, generally following 7 consecutive days of snow cover. If there are no snow data, shutdown occurs following 7 consecutive days with noon temperatures lower than or equal to 5°C. Historical climate conditions were derived from the 1981–2010 Canadian Climate Normals. Future projections were computed using two different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). RCPs are different greenhouse gas concentration trajectories adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its fifth Assessment Report. RCP 2.6 (referred to as rapid emissions reductions) assumes that greenhouse gas concentrations peak between 2010-2020, with emissions declining thereafter. In the RCP 8.5 scenario (referred to as continued emissions increases) greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise throughout the 21st century. Provided layer: difference in projected fire season length for the medium-term (2041-2070) under the RCP 8.5 (continued emissions increases) compared to reference period across Canada.

Fire weather refers to weather conditions that are conducive to fire. These conditions determine the fire season, which is the period(s) of the year during which fires are likely to start, spread and do sufficient damage to warrant organized fire suppression. The length of fire season is the difference between the start- and end-of-fire-season dates. These are defined by the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI; http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/) start-up and end dates. Start-up occurs when the station has been snow-free for 3 consecutive days, with noon temperatures of at least 12°C. For stations that do not report significant snow cover during the winter (i.e., less than 10 cm or snow-free for 75% of the days in January and February), start-up occurs when the mean daily temperature has been 6°C or higher for 3 consecutive days. The fire season ends with the onset of winter, generally following 7 consecutive days of snow cover. If there are no snow data, shutdown occurs following 7 consecutive days with noon temperatures lower than or equal to 5°C. Historical climate conditions were derived from the 1981–2010 Canadian Climate Normals. Future projections were computed using two different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). RCPs are different greenhouse gas concentration trajectories adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its fifth Assessment Report. RCP 2.6 (referred to as rapid emissions reductions) assumes that greenhouse gas concentrations peak between 2010-2020, with emissions declining thereafter. In the RCP 8.5 scenario (referred to as continued emissions increases) greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise throughout the 21st century. Provided layer: difference in projected fire season length for the long-term (2071-2100) under the RCP 2.6 (rapid emissions reductions) compared to reference period across Canada.

This data depicts site suitability for the establishment of area-based Short Rotation Woody Crops (SRWC) of willow on lands eligible (i.e. non-forested) for afforestation across Canada. Determining the feasibility of a large-scale afforestation program is one approach being investigated by the Government of Canada to increase Canada's potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and/or produce bioproducts and bioenergy. Large-scale afforestation, however, requires knowledge of where it is suitable to establish and grow trees. Spatial models based on Boolean logic and/or statistical models within a geographic information system may be used for this purpose, but empirical environmental data are often lacking, and the association of these data to land suitability is most often a subjective process. As a solution to this problem, a fuzzy-logic modeling approach to assess site suitability for afforestation of hybrid poplar (Populus spp.) and willow (Salix spp.) in Canada was developed. Expert knowledge regarding the selection and magnitudes of environmental variables were integrated into fuzzy rule sets from which estimates of site suitability were generated and spatially presented. The environmental variables selected included growing season precipitation, climate moisture index, growing degree days, the Canada Land Inventory capability for agriculture and elevation. Site suitability is generally defined as the fitness of a given type of land for a particular use. For this assessment, site suitability was defined as the fitness of edaphic, climatic and topographic conditions to establish and grow SRWC species at rates 8 times those of native species. Suitability index values range from 1-100, with higher values corresponding to higher suitability. Approximately 246,000 km2, or 38% of the eligible land base within Canada was found to be suitable for afforestation using Short Rotation Woody Crops (SRWC) of hybrid poplar and/or willow.

The raster maps depict a suite of forest attributes in 2001* and 2011 at 250 m by 250 m spatial resolution. The maps were produced using the k nearest neighbours method applied to MODIS imagery and trained from National Forest Inventory photo plot data. For detailed information about map production methods please refer to Beaudoin et al. (2018) "Tracking forest attributes across Canada between 2001 and 2011 using the k nearest neighbours mapping approach applied to MODIS imagery." Canadian Journal of Forest Research 48, 85-93. https://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/publications?id=38979 The map datasets may be downloaded from https://nfi.nfis.org/downloads/nfi_knn2011.zip or https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/ec9e2659-1c29-4ddb-87a2-6aced147a990 * Note: the forest composition (leading tree genus) map depicts forest attributes in 2001. How can this data be used? The resolution and accuracy of these map products are best suited for strategic-level forest reporting and informing policy and decision making at regional to national scales. As these maps also offer a coherent set of quantitative values for a large suite of forest attributes, they can be used as baseline information for modelling and in calculations such as merchantable forest volume or percentage of tree species. It is also possible to overlay these maps with other maps produced on the same pixel grid to make assessments of disturbance impacts, such as fire and harvests.