The Department of National Defence has designated Firing Practice and Exercise Areas off the coasts of Canada. Activities in these areas may include bombing practice from aircraft, air-to-air, air-to-sea or ground firing, and anti-aircraft firing, etc. In Atlantic Canada, the Nova Scotia Area includes sea area employments for sub-surface operations and firing exercises (FIREX). The Gulf of St. Lawrence Area, excluding the French territorial waters of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, includes sea area employments for sub-surface operations and underwater demolition training. For full details, see the Notices to Mariners, Section F, National Defence Military Notices, available online: https://www.notmar.gc.ca/publications/annual-annuel/section-f/f35-en.pdf. Legal Constraints: Users should be aware that the polygons depicting firing practice and exercise areas are intended for illustration only and should not be used for navigational or legal purposes.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has conducted a cumulative human impact mapping analysis for Pacific Canada to support ongoing Marine Spatial Planning. Cumulative impact mapping (CIM) combines spatial information on human activities, habitats, and a matrix of vulnerability weights into an intuitive relative ‘cumulative impact score’ that shows where cumulative human impacts are greatest and least. To map cumulative impacts, a recently developed ecosystem vulnerability assessment for Pacific Canadian waters (Murray et al. 2022) was combined with spatial information on thirty-eight (38) different habitat types and forty-five (45) human activities following the methodology from Halpern et al.(2008) and Murray et al. (2015). The cumulative impact map is provided in a 1x1 km grid used for oceans management by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. For further information, please contact the data provider.

The water level data comes from the Provincial Groundwater Monitoring Network (PGMN) of Ontario. Each well in the observation network is equipped with a hydrostatic pressure transducer and a temperature sensor connected to a data logger. A second pressure transducer located above the water surface allows for adjusting the water level according to atmospheric pressure variations. The time series refers to the level below which the soil is saturated with water at the site and at the time indicated. The water level is expressed in meters above sea level (MASL). Groundwater levels are recorded hourly. The dataset consists of a general description of the observation site including; the identifier, the name, the location, the elevation, and a series of numerical values designating the water levels at a defined date and time of measurement.

In 2021, the Canada Coast Guard (CCG) and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) updated its administrative boundaries following the creation a new Arctic region.There are now 7 administrative regions in DFO (Pacific, Arctic, Ontario and Prairie, Quebec, Gulf, Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador). DFO and Coast Guard Arctic Regions developed these regions in partnership with the people they serve; this important decision will lead to stronger programs and services to better meet the unique needs of our Arctic communities.DFO and CCG operations and research cover Canada's land and waters to the international boundaries (EEZ) and are in no way limited to the boundaries drawn in the map.

Points, polylines and polygons where species and features have been found, harvested or detailed. Community Based Coastal Resource Inventory (CCRI) – Fisheries and Oceans Canada in conjunction with several Federal and Provincial agencies created, implemented, and managed a program which set out to develop a coastal resource inventory based on the traditional knowledge of local residents. Through partnerships with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Regional Economic Development (RED) Boards and other community based groups the project assembled a database containing several decade’s worth of local knowledge. The value of the information collected came through individual interviews with people who had extensive knowledge of the immediate geography and resource, having lived, worked and harvested the regions over a lifetime. This project ran from 1996 to 2007.

The atlas provides printable maps, Web Services and downloadable data files representing seabirds at-sea densities in eastern Canada. The information provided on the open data web site can be used to identify areas where seabirds at sea are found in eastern Canada. However, low survey effort or high variation in some areas introduces uncertainty in the density estimates provided. The data and maps found on the open data web site should therefore be interpreted with an understanding of this uncertainty. Data were collected using ships of opportunity surveys and therefore spatial and seasonal coverage varies considerably. Densities are computed using distance sampling to adjust for variation in detection rates among observers and survey conditions. Depending on conditions, seabirds can be difficult to identify to species level. Therefore, densities at higher taxonomic levels are provided. more details in the document: Atlas_SeabirdsAtSea-OiseauxMarinsEnMer.pdf. By clicking on "View on Map" you will visualize a example of the density measured for all species combined from April to July - 2006-2020. ESRI REST or WMS map services can be added to your web maps or opened directly in your desktop mapping applications. These are alternatives to downloading and provide densities for all taxonomical groups and species as well as survey effort.

The Bedrock Index provides a spatial record of the location of all Bedrock maps published by the Geological Survey of Canada and hosted on Geoscan. The index has three "series" of maps; CGM, A series, and preliminary maps. In cases where there have been multiple editions of a map, the most recent record is reported in the Bedrock Index attribute table. Maps published in Open File documents are not recorded in the bedrock index. The "A" series maps were produced from 1909 to 2010 and have been replaced by the CGM (Canadian Geoscience Maps) series. CGM maps began production in 2010 and are still being published. Preliminary maps were published from 1941 to 2021.

Dataset of species/gear type commercial fisheries from 2014 to 2023 in the Eastern Canada Regions. Only fish harvested from the NL, Maritimes, Gulf, Quebec and Eastern Arctic regions are included (Species Sought). The data was obtained from Statistical Services, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and consists of commercial species/gear type landings data from 2014 to 2023 taken from Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) Subareas 0, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and fished in the NL, Maritimes, Gulf, Quebec and Eastern Arctic regions. The layer was created by overlaying a 2 minute hexagonal grid (approx. 10km2 cell) on species/gear type commercial fisheries point data and summing the total landings by weight reported for each cell over the ten year period. Therefore, the value of each grid cell is equal to the total species/gear type landings in kg from 2014 to 2023 for the area, and may represent many fishing events from several vessels over the ten year period. All landings are from Canadian vessels and does not include information pertaining to international fishing vessels (i.e., St. Pierre). Individuals should exercise caution when interpreting this data. Data has not been altered and is mapped from the original logbook entry for each record prior to amalgamation. Data may contain errors such as inaccurate or nonviable coordinates, landed weights and/or species identification. For example, cases of fishing events reported in a NAFO Division with corresponding coordinates falling outside that particular NAFO Division or fishing events which appear to be located on a land mass due to rounding errors in the original entries. Such cases were excluded from the dataset. Only one location is given for each fishing event; therefore, a fishing activity that would normally cover a large area (i.e., trawling) is only shown in a single location. Some species may not include all records or locations where activity is taking place due to regional differences in permissions for mapping, or because the fishery is only partially georeferenced (e.g. Lobster). The locations/areas shown should only be used as an estimation of fishing intensity and a general guide of where particular species/gear type fishing occurs. This dataset has been privacy screened to comply with the Government of Canada's privacy policy. Privacy assessments were conducted to identify NAFO unit areas containing data with less than five vessel IDs, license IDs and fisher IDs. If this threshold was not met, catch weight locations have been withheld from these statistical areas to protect the identity or activity of individual vessels or companies. In some instances, permissions were obtained to map species or gears with a limited number of vessels, licenses, or fisher ids. The withheld areas are indicated by the unit area that has been removed and given a weight of -9999.

Proxied dataset of inshore lobster commercial fishing for 2012 - 2021 in the Newfoundland and Labrador region. Only lobster harvested from the Newfoundland and Labrador region are included, based on species sought. Commercial data for the inshore lobster fishery does not require a set of coordinates be provided for catch records. With zero georeferenced inshore lobster records, the inshore lobster fishery leaves a major data gap in one of Newfoundland and Labradors largest fisheries. The Gulf region created a lobster proxy mapping tool, which associated each commercial lobster record with the most likely 10km2 hexagon grid cell based on a number of weighted variables. The tool was adopted by the Newfoundland and Labrador region and altered to work with its own variables which include human use, habitat, accessibility, area/location, home port distance, traditional ecological knowledge and depth. Each hexagon represents the summed total weight of all records associated with a particular hexagon. The best available commercial data used in this model is derived from landings data and may not include catches that have resulted in cash/wharf sales. As a result, there are some areas of Newfoundland and Labrador that may be under represented in this dataset where wharf sales may be high. Therefore, this dataset should be viewed as a general estimation on lobster harvesting patterns within Newfoundland and Labrador.

As part of a scientific assessment of critical habitat for boreal woodland caribou (Environment Canada 2011, see full reference in accompanying documentation), Environment Canada's Landscape Science and Technology Division was tasked with providing detailed anthropogenic disturbance mapping, across known caribou ranges, as of 2015. This data comprises a 5-year update to the mapping of 2008-2010 disturbances, and allows researchers to better understand the attributes that have a known effect on caribou population persistence. The original disturbance mapping was based on 30-metre resolution Landsat-5 imagery from 2008 -2010. The mapping process used in 2010 was repeated using 2015 Landsat imagery to create a nationally consistent, reliable and repeatable geospatial dataset that followed a common methodology. The methods developed were focused on mapping disturbances at a specific point of time, and were not designed to identify the age of disturbances, which can be of particular interest for disturbances that can be considered non-permanent, for example cutblocks. The resultant datasets were used for a caribou resource selection function (habitat modeling) and to assess overall disturbance levels on each caribou ranges. Anthropogenic disturbances within 51 caribou ranges across Canada were mapped. The ranges were defined by individual provinces and territories across Canada. Disturbances were remapped across these ranges using 2015 Landsat-8 satellite imagery to provide the most up-to-date data possible. As with the 2010 mapping project, anthropogenic disturbance was defined as any human-caused disturbance to the natural landscape that could be visually identified from Landsat imagery with 30-metre multi-band imagery at a viewing scale of 1:50,000. A minimum mapping unit MMU of 2 ha (approximately 22 contiguous 30-metre pixels) was selected. Each disturbance feature type was represented in the database by a line or polygon depending on their geometric description. Polygonal disturbances included: cutblocks, mines, reservoirs, built-up areas, well sites, agriculture, oil and gas facilities, as well as unknown features. Linear disturbances included: roads, railways, powerlines, seismic exploration lines, pipelines, dams, air strips, as well as unknown features. For each type of anthropogenic disturbance, a clear description was established (see Appendix 7.2 of the science assessment) to maintain consistency in identifying the various disturbances in the imagery by the different interpreters. Features were only digitized if they were visible in the Landsat imagery at the prescribed viewing scale. A 2nd interpreter quality-control phase was carried out to ensure high quality, complete and consistent data collection. For this 2015 update an additional, separate higher-resolution database was created by repeating the process using 15-metre panchromatic imagery. For the 30-metre database only, the line and poly data were buffered by a 500-metre radius, representing their extended zone of impact upon boreal caribou herds. Additionally, forest fire polygons were merged into the anthropogenic footprint in order to create an overall disturbance footprint. These buffered datasets were used in the calculation of range disturbance levels and for integrated risk assessment analysis.