Landcover dataset created for the northern part of Saskatchewan based on a combination of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) data representing circa 2000 conditions. Download: here It is a priority of the Saskatchewan and Canadian government to assess and monitor the health and sustainability of Canada's Forest. The North Digital Land Cover Classification (NDLC) will provide Saskatchewan's contribution to Canada's Earth Observation for Sustainable Development of Forests (EOSD) initiative, helping Canada fulfill it's obligation to the Kyoto Protocol. The NDLC supports the mission and directives of the Saskatchewan provincial government by providing an essential dataset which will enable researchers, natural resource managers and government to assess the health and sustainability of our forests, perform research in the area of climate change, manage natural resources and create policy. The NDLC will be based on a combination of Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) data representing circa 2000 conditions. The NDLC is being produced through a collaboration of federal, provincial, and territorial governments, agencies and industry. Classification Value Background 0 Agriculture 1 Not Assigned 2 Pasture Upland Herbaceous Graminoid 3 Not Assigned 4 Not Assigned 5 Hardwood Open Canopy 6 Hardwood Closed Canopy 7 Jack Pine Closed Canopy 8 Jack Pine Open Canopy 9 Spruce Closed Canopy 10 Spruce Open Canopy 11 Mixed Hardwoods/Softwoods, Softwood/Hardwood Open and Closed Canopy 12 Treed Rock 13 Recent Burn 14 Revegetating/Regenerating Burn 15 Cutovers 16 Water 17 Marsh 18 Herbaceous Fen 19 Mud Sand Saline 20 Shrub Fen 21 Treed Bog 22 Open Bog 23 Not Assigned 24 Settlements/Roads 25 Barren Land 26 Mixed Softwoods Open and Closed 27 Cloud/Shadow/Haze 28 Unclassified 29 0. Background: Where pixels values are equal to 0 in all channels of satellite image data.  1. Agriculture: Cropland and agricultural clearing areas  2. Not Assigned: Empty Class  3. Pasture Upland Herbaceous Graminoid: Lands containing known pastures, tame or native grasses and herbaceous vegetation. May contain low-lying shrubs with less then 10% tree cover. 4. Not Assigned: Empty Class  5. Not Assigned: Empty Class  6. Hardwood Open Canopy: Trembling Aspen, White Birch, Balsam Poplar composes greater than 75% of species by area, Crown Closure: greater than 10% and less than or equal to 55% (SE crown closure classes A and B).  7. Hardwood Closed Canopy: Trembling Aspen, White Birch, Balsam Poplar composes greater than 75% of species by area, Crown Closure: greater than 55% (SE crown closure classes C and D).  8. Jack Pine Closed Canopy: Jack Pine composes greater than 75% of species by area, Crown Closure: greater than 55% (SE crown closure classes C and D).  9. Jack Pine Open Canopy: Jack Pine composes greater than 75% of species by area, Crown Closure: greater than 10 and less than or equal to 55% (SE crown closure classes C and D).  10. Spruce Closed Canopy: White Spruce, Black Spruce composes greater than 75% of species by area, Crown Closure: greater than 55% (SE crown closure classes C and D).  11. Spruce Open Canopy: White Spruce, Black Spruce composes greater than 75% of species by area, Crown Closure: greater than 10 and less than or equal to 55% (SE crown closure classes C and D).  12. Mixed Hardwoods/Softwoods, Softwood/Hardwood Open and Closed Canopy: An area of hardwood and softwood combinations in which neither hardwood nor softwood account for greater than 75% of species by area and where the crown closure is greater than 10%.  13. Treed Rock: Forest vegetation less than 10%.  14. Recent Burn: An area showing evidence of recent burning natural or prescribed and there is little to no regeneration or revegetation visible.  15. Revegetating/Regenerating Burn: An area showing evidence of natural or prescribed burning and where regeneration or revegetation is visible.  16. Cutovers: An area of deforestation, vegetated and non-vegetated. Ancillary data required to correctly classify due to the anthropogenic land cover/land use class.  17. Water: These areas include lakes, rivers, streams, and reservoirs.  18. Marsh: A periodically wet or continually flooded but non peat-forming area supporting grasses, sedges and reeds.  19. Herbaceous Fen: A wetland area consisting of nutrient rich water and decomposing peat supporting vascular and nonvascular plants grasses, sedges, and reeds.  20. Mud Sand Saline: Water saturated soil, salt water and sand containing no vegetation.  21. Shrub Fen: A wetland area consisting of nutrient rich water and decomposing peat supporting low shrubs, forbs, grass, moss, and a sparse tree cover.  22. Treed Bog: A wetland area consisting of decomposing peat moss, lichen and shrubs with 10% to 25% tree cover of stunted black spruce and tamarack.  23. Open Bog: A wetland area consisting of low nutrient water and decomposing peat moss, lichen, and sparse tree cover.  24. Not Assigned: Empty Class  25. Settlements/Roads: Anthropogenic land cover consisting of urban, commercial, industrial, major roads, highways, surface mines, gravel pits and spoil piles.  26. Barren Land: With the exception of the settlements and Roads class, any area of exposed rock, soil or non-vegetated land.  27. Mixed Softwoods Open and Closed: Jack Pine/Spruce, Spruce/Jack Pine Open and Closed, an area of softwood combinations in which neither Jack Pine or Spruce account for greater than 75% of species by area and where crown closure is greater than 10%.  28. Cloud/Shadow/Haze: An area of cloud, shadow, haze.  29. Unclassified: An area of unidentifiable land cover, indicates no work done/not classified, wrong information, missing data and possible new class greater than 3 pixels. 

Since 1988, the governments of Canada and Quebec have been working together to conserve, restore, protect and develop the St. Lawrence River under the St. Lawrence Action Plan (SLAP). One of the projects identified under the theme of biodiversity conservation is the development of an integrated plan for the conservation of the natural environments and biodiversity of the St. Lawrence River. The identification of priority sites for conservation has been the first step of this planning exercise. Conservation planning of natural environments requires a reliable, accurate and up-to-date image of the spatial distribution of ecosystems in the study area. In order to produce an Atlas of Priority Sites for Conservation in the St. Lawrence Lowlands, an updated cartography of the land cover of this vast territory was undertaken. This project required obtaining reliable information on the natural environments of the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Although several land cover mapping projects have been conducted for specific types of habitats, it was particularly important to obtain a homogeneous product that would cover the entire territory and that would provide the most detailed information on its various thematic components: agricultural, aquatic, human-modified and forest environments, wetlands as well as old fields and bare ground. The methodology used to produce the land cover mapping of the St. Lawrence Lowlands thus relied mainly on combining and enhancing the best existing products for each theme. This project was made in collaboration with MDDELCC as part of the St. Lawrence Action Plan (SLAP).

The 1 cm resolution digital surface model (DSM) was created from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery acquired from a single day survey, July 28th 2016, in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Five control points taken from a Global Differential Positioning System were positioned in the corners and the center of the vegetation survey. The DSM covering 525m2 was produced by Canada Centre for Remote Sensing /Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation. The UAV survey was completed in collaboration with the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) for northern vegetation monitoring research. For more information, refer to our current Arctic vegetation research: Fraser et al; "UAV photogrammetry for mapping vegetation in the low-Arctic" Arctic Science, 2016, 2(3): 79-102. http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/AS-2016-0008

Each pixel value corresponds to the actual number (count) of valid Best-quality Max-NDVI values used to calculate the mean weekly values for that pixel. Since 2020, the maximum number of possible observations used to create the Mean Best-Quality Max-NDVI for the 2000-2014 period is n=20. However, because data quality varies both temporally and geographically (e.g. cloud cover and snow cover in spring; cloud near large water bodies all year), the actual number (count) of observations used to create baselines can vary significantly for any given week and year.

Data include a collection of annual land cover maps derived from MODIS 250 m spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery for the period 2000 to 2011. Processing of the time series was designed to reduce the occurrence of false change between maps. The method was based on change updating as described in Pouliot et al. (2011, 2013). Change detection accounted for both abrupt changes such as forest harvesting and more gradual changes such as recurrent insect defoliation. To determine the new label for a pixel identified as change, an evidential reasoning approach was used to combine spectral and contextual information. The 2005 MODIS land cover of Canada at 250 m spatial resolution described in Latifovic et al. (2012) was used as the base map. It contains 39 land cover classes, which for time series development was considered too detailed and was reduced to 25 and 19 class versions. The 19 class version corresponds to the North America Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS) Level 2 legend as described in Latifovic et al. (2012). Accuracy assessment of time series is difficult due to the need to assess many maps. For areas of change in the time series accuracy was found to be 70% based on the 19 class thematic legend. This time series captures the spatial distribution of dominant land cover transitions. It is intended for use in modeling, development of remote sensing products such as leaf area index or land cover based albedo retrievals, and other exploratory analysis. It is not appropriate for use in any rigorous reporting or inventory assessments due to the accuracy of the land cover classification and uncertainty as to the capture of all relevant changes for an application.

The ‘Circa 1995 Landcover of the Prairies’dataset is a geospatial raster data layer portraying the rudimentaryland cover types of all grain-growing areas of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and northeastern British Columbia at a 30-metre resolution for the 1995 timeframe. It is the collection of all the classified imagery (1993 to 1995) of the Western Grain Transition Payment Program (WGTPP) assembled into a single seamless raster data layer.

Landcover dataset created for the agricultural portion of Saskatchewan. Download: here A satellite imagery classification of Southern Saskatchewan based mainly on 1994 Landsat5 imagery. Developed by the Saskatchewan Research Council after 1997. Background: A group of Provincial and Federal Agencies formed a partnership in March of 1997 to share the cost of obtaining satellite imagery and interpreting this imagery to create a landcover dataset for the agricultural portion of Saskatchewan. The partnership included Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC), Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food (SAF), Saskatchewan Crop Insurance (SCI), Saskatchewan Property Management Corporation (SPMC), Environment Canada, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) and Saskatchewan Environment Resource Management (SERM). The University of Regina was also involved as an 'in kind' partner providing research services in the area of land cover classifications, accuracy assessment and data conversions. The Partnership Agreement required SRC (partner doing the bulk of data processing) to provide digital files for each of 328 1:50,000 NTS map sheets. The digital files included not only raw imagery, but also one file for each map sheet where the imagery was classified into 24 landcover types. The accuracy of this classification was to be demonstrated by SRC to be at least 90 per cent correct. In addition to the data processing done by SRC, SPMC provided the necessary positional control data (road intersection coordinates) and verified the positional accuracy of the final product. The other partners provided feedback to SRC on classification errors, which improved the overall accuracy of the final product. Classification Value No Data 0 Crop Land 1 Hay Crops (Forage) 2 Native Dominant Grass Lands 3 Tall Shrubs 4 Pasture (Seeded Grass Lands) 5 Hardwoods (Open Canopy) 6 Hardwoods (Closed Canopy) 7 Jack Pine (Closed Canopy) 8 Jack Pine (Open Canopy) 9 Spruce (Close Canopy) 10 Treed Rock 13 Recent Burns 14 Revegetating Burns 15 Cutovers 16 Water Bodies 17 Marsh 18 Herbaceous Fen 19 Mud/Sand/Saline 20 Shrub Fen (Treed Swamp) 21 Treed Bog 22 Open Bog 23 Slopes 25 Slopes 26 0. No Data 1. Crop Land - All lands dedicated to the production of annual cereal, oil seed and other specialty crops, and typically cultivated on an annual basis.  2. Hay Crops (Forage) - Alfalfa and alfalfa/tame grass mixtures.  3. Native Dominant Grass Lands - Native dominant grasslands/may contain tame grasses and herbs.  4. Tall Shrubs - Communities containing both low and tall shrub, snowberry, saskatoon, chokecherry, buffaloberry, and willow.  5. Pasture (Seeded Grass Lands) - Grassland dominated by tame grass species.  6. Hardwoods (Open Canopy) - Corresponds to Provincial Forest Inventory: over 75% hardwoods; 10-30% crown closure.  7. Hardwoods (Closed Canopy) - Corresponds to Provincial Forest Inventory: over 75% hardwoods; 30-100% crown closure.  8. Jack Pine (Closed Canopy) - Similar to Provincial Forest Inventory: 75% or greater Jack Pine; 30-100% crown closure.  9. Jack Pine (Open Canopy) - Similar to Provincial Forest Inventory: 75% or greater Jack Pine; 10-30% crown closure.  10. Spruce (Close Canopy) - Similar to Provincial Forest Inventory: 75% or greater Black and White Spruce; 10-30% crown closure. 11. Spruce: Open Canopy - Similar to Provincial Forest Inventory: 75% or greater Black and White Spruce; 10-30% crown closure. 12. Mixed Woods - All softwood/hardwood mixtures.  13. Treed Rock - Areas of exposed bedrock with generally less then 10% tree cover. Dominant species are Jack Pine and Black Spruce.  14. Recent Burns - All areas that have been recently burned over by wildfires.  15. Revegetating Burns - Burns with a regrowth of commercial timber generally 1-5 metres in height.  16. Cutovers - Areas where commercial timber has been completely or partially removed by logging operations.  17. Water Bodies - Consists of all open water - lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, and lagoons.  18. Marsh - Dominated by sedge and wetland grasses.  19. Herbaceous Fen - Fens dominated by herbaceous species.  20. Mud/Sand/Saline  21. Shrub Fen (Treed Swamp) - Fens dominated by shrubby species.  22. Treed Bog - Peat-covered or peat-filled depressions with a high water table and a surface carpet of moss, chiefly sphagnum. The bogs have 25% or more canopy by trees greater than one metre tall. The primary species is black spruce.  23. Open Bog - Peat-covered or peat-filled depressions with a high water table and a surface carpet of moss, chiefly sphagnum. 24. Farmstead - Farmstead types, towns, cities, Exposed areas with little or no vegetation or Cloud coverage.  25. Slopes - Steep Valley slopes or hill slopes where aspect and slope prohibit classification. 26. Slopes - Steep Valley slopes or hill slopes where aspect and slope prohibit classification.

Leaf area index (LAI) quantified the density of vegetation irrespective of land cover. LAI quantifies the total foliage surface area per groud surface area. LAI has been identified by the Global Climate Observing System as an essential climate variable required for ecosystem,weather and climate modelling and monitoring. This product consists of annual maps of the maximum LAI during a grownig season (June-July-August) at 100m resolution covering Canada's land mass.

FCOVER corresponds to the amount of the ground surface that is covered by vegetation, including the understory, when viewed vertically (from nadir). FCOVER is an indicator of the spatial extent of vegetation independent of land cover class. It is a dimensionless quantity that varies from 0 to 1, and as an intrinsic property of the canopy, is not dependent on satellite observation conditions.This product consists of FCOVER indicator during peak-season (June-July-August) at 100m resolution covering Canada's land mass.