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.

Each pixel value corresponds to the best quality maximum NDVI recorded within that pixel over the week specified. Poor quality pixel observations are removed from this product. Observations whose quality is degraded by snow cover, shadow, cloud, aerosols, and/or low sensor zenith angles are removed (and are assigned a value of “missing data”). In addition, negative Max-NDVI values, occurring where R reflectance > NIR reflectance, are considered non-vegetated and assigned a value of 0. This results in a Max-NDVI product that should (mostly) contain vegetation-covered pixels. Max-NDVI values are considered high quality and span a biomass gradient ranging from 0 (no/low biomass) to 1 (high biomass).

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.

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. NOTE: To see this entire product in the map viewer, use a base map in the "World" section (EPSG: 3857).