The “Soils of Canada, Derived” national scale thematic datasets display the distribution and areal extent of soil attributes such as drainage, texture of parent material, kind of material, and classification of soils in terms of provincial Detailed Soil Surveys (DDS) polygons, Soil Landscape Polygons (SLCs), Soil Order and Great Group. The relief and associated slopes of the Canadian landscape are depicted on the local surface form thematic dataset. The purpose of the “Soils of Canada, Derived” series is to facilitate the cartographic display and basic queries of the Soil Landscapes of Canada at a national scale. For more detailed or sophisticated analysis, users should investigate the full “Soil Landscapes of Canada” product.

Each pixel value corresponds to the mean historical “Best-quality” Max-NDVI value for a given week, as calculated from the previous 20 years in the MODIS historical record (i.e. does not include data from the current year). These data are also often referred to as “weekly baselines” or “weekly normals”.

McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd (MCSL) has performed a LiDAR and Imagery survey in southern Saskatchewan. The acquisition was completed between the 16th and 25th of October, 2009. The survey consisted of approximately 790 square kilometers of coverage. While collecting the LiDAR data, we also acquired aerial photo in RGB and NIR modes consisting of 1649 frames each.

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

The “Land Cover for Agricultural Regions of Canada (circa 2000), Date Index” dataset is a geospatial data layer containing polygon features representing the Landsat scene number, associated dates and other products that were incorporated into the thematic land cover classification which is contained within the AAFC Landcover (circa 2000) product.

The dataset includes two data products derived from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) imager operated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) onboard Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite: 1) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) 2) Snow Mask (Snow) with supplementary information about data quality and scene identification Each product, NDVI and Snow, has been derived at two spatial resolutions: 1) I-band resolution for 250-m spatial grid (VIIRS image bands I1 and I2) 2) M-band resolution for 500-m spatial grid (VIIRS moderate resolution bands M5 and M7) Datasets are produced with a daily temporal frequency, i.e. one file per day. The study area with the size of 5,700 km × 4,800 km covers Canada and neighboring regions (Trishchenko, 2019). The VIIRS time series are produced from VIIRS /SNPP imagery at CCRS from January 1, 2017.

AAFC’s Canadian Ag-Land Monitoring System (CALMS), operational since 2009, was developed by AAFC’s Earth Observation Service (EOS) to deliver weekly NDVI-based maps of crop condition in near-real-time. The CALMS uses data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS), a sensor mounted onboard NASA’s Terra satellite that has been acquiring data since February 2000. The state-of-the-art radiometric, spectral and spatial resolutions of MODIS Terra make it particularly well-suited for large-scale vegetation mapping and assessment. Crop condition (NDVI) maps are generated weekly by AAFC throughout Canada’s growing season, the period defined as the six-month period stretching from the start of Julian week 12 (end of March) to the end of Julian week 44 (late October). Weeks of the year are defined according to the ISO 8601 week-numbering standard, where weeks start on a Monday and end the following Sunday. CALMS products are generated in the MODIS native Integrated Sinusoidal (ISIN) projection for the region covering the twelve MODIS tiles h09v03 to h14v03 and h09v04 to h14v04.

This data publication contains two collections of raster maps of forest attributes across Canada, the first collection for year 2001, and the second for year 2011. The 2001 collection is actually an improved version of an earlier set of maps produced also for year 2001 (Beaudoin et al 2014, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2013-0401) that is itself available through the web site “http://nfi-nfis.org”. Each collection contains 93 maps of forest attributes: four land cover classes, 11 continuous stand-level structure variables such as age, volume, biomass and height, and 78 continuous values of percent composition for tree species or genus. The mapping was done at a spatial resolution of 250m along the MODIS grid. Briefly the method uses forest polygon information from the first version of photoplots database from Canada’s National Forest Inventory as reference data, and the non-parametric k-nearest neighbors procedure (kNN) to create the raster maps of forest attributes. The approach uses a set of 20 predictive variables that include MODIS spectral reflectance data, as well as topographic and climate data. Estimates are carried out on target pixels across all Canada treed landmass that are stratified as either forest or non-forest with 25% forest cover used as a threshold. Forest cover information was extracted from the global forest cover product of Hansen et al (2013) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1244693). The mapping methodology and resultant datasets were intended to address the discontinuities across provincial borders created by their large differences in forest inventory standards. Analysis of residuals has failed to reveal residual discontinuities across provincial boundaries in the current raster dataset, meaning that our goal of providing discontinuity-free maps has been reached. The dataset was developed specifically to address strategic issues related to phenomena that span multiple provinces such as fire risk, insect spread and drought. In addition, the use of the kNN approach results in the maintenance of a realistic covariance structure among the different variable maps, an important property when the data are extracted to be used in models of ecosystem processes. For example, within each pixel, the composition values of all tree species add to 100%. * Details on the product development and validation can be found in the following publication: Beaudoin, A., Bernier, P.Y., Villemaire, P., Guindon, L., Guo, X.-J. 2017. Tracking forest attributes across Canada between 2001 and 2011 using a kNN mapping approach applied to MODIS imagery, Canadian Journal of Forest Research 48: 85–93. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2017-0184 * Please cite this dataset as: Beaudoin A, Bernier PY, Villemaire P, Guindon L, Guo XJ. 2017. Species composition, forest properties and land cover types across Canada’s forests at 250m resolution for 2001 and 2011. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Laurentian Forestry Centre, Quebec, Canada. https://doi.org/10.23687/ec9e2659-1c29-4ddb-87a2-6aced147a990 * This dataset contains these NFI forest attributes: ## LAND COVER : landbase vegetated, landbase non-vegetated, landcover treed, landcover non-treed ## TREE STRUCTURE : total above ground biomass, tree branches biomass, tree foliage biomass, stem bark biomass, stem wood biomass, total dead trees biomass, stand age, crown closure, tree stand heigth, merchantable volume, total volume ## TREE SPECIES : abies amabilis (amabilis fir), abies balsamea (balsam fir), abies lasiocarpa (subalpine fir), abies spp. (unidentified fir), acer macrophyllum (bigleaf maple), acer negundo (manitoba maple, box-elder), acer pensylvanicum (striped maple), acer rubrum (red maple), acer saccharinum (silver maple), acer saccharum (sugar maple), acer spicatum (mountain maple), acer spp. (unidentified maple), alnus rubra (red alder), alnus spp. (unidentified alder), arbutus menziesii (arbutus), betula alleghaniensis (yellow birch), betula papyrifera (white birch), betula populifolia (gray birch), betula spp. (unidentified birch), carpinus caroliniana (blue-beech), carya cordiformis (bitternut hickory), chamaecyparis nootkatensis (yellow-cedar), fagus grandifolia (american beech), fraxinus americana (white ash), fraxinus nigra (black ash), fraxinus pennsylvanica (red ash), juglans cinerea (butternut), juglans nigra (black walnut), juniperus virginiana (eastern redcedar), larix laricina (tamarack), larix lyallii (subalpine larch), larix occidentalis (western larch), larix spp. (unidentified larch), malus spp. (unidentified apple), ostrya virginiana (ironwood, hop-hornbeam), picea abies (norway spruce), picea engelmannii (engelmann spruce), picea glauca (white spruce), picea mariana (black spruce), picea rubens (red spruce), picea sitchensis (sitka spruce), picea spp. (unidentified spruce), pinus albicaulis (whitebark pine), pinus banksiana (jack pine), pinus contorta (lodgepole pine), pinus monticola (western white pine), pinus ponderosa (ponderosa pine), pinus resinosa (red pine), pinus spp. (unidentified pine), pinus strobus (eastern white pine), pinus sylvestris (scots pine), populus balsamifera (balsam poplar), populus grandidentata (largetooth aspen), populus spp. (unidentified poplar), populus tremuloides (trembling aspen), populus trichocarpa (black cottonwood), prunus pensylvanica (pin cherry), prunus serotina (black cherry), pseudotsuga menziesii (douglas-fir), quercus alba (white oak), quercus macrocarpa (bur oak), quercus rubra (red oak), quercus spp. (unidentified oak), salix spp. (unidentified willow), sorbus americana (american mountain-ash), thuja occidentalis (eastern white-cedar), thuja plicata (western redcedar), tilia americana (basswood), tsuga canadensis (eastern hemlock), tsuga heterophylla (western hemlock), tsuga mertensiana (mountain hemlock), tsuga spp. (unidentified hemlock), ulmus americana (white elm), unidentified needleaf, unidentified broadleaf, broadleaf species, needleaf species, unknown species