The National Human Settlement Layer (NHSL) is a collection of thematic datasets that describe the physical, social and economic characteristics of urban centres and rural/remote communities across Canada, and their vulnerability to natural hazards of concern. Detailed information on land use, buildings, people and capital assets are provided at the Census Dissemination Area administrative level for more than 454,000 settled areas across Canada. The Physical Exposure Layer includes a delineation of human settlement areas and related functional land use classes across Canada, and provides detailed information on construction type, occupancy and design level of more than 9.1 million buildings; population dynamics at different times of day for 35.1 million people, and; capital asset valuation of buildings and contents totaling more than 8.3 trillion CAD$. The Social Fabric Layer utilizes Census demographic data to evaluate broad spatial patterns of vulnerability, and neighbourhood-level capacities to withstand and recover from disaster events based on intrinsic characteristics of housing, family structure, individual autonomy and financial agency. Although developed to support quantitative risk assessments and implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction at local and regional scales in Canada, the NHSL is also suitable for use in other integrated landscape modeling applications, including climate change adaptation and sustainable land use planning.

This web site provides adjusted and homogenized climate data for many climatological stations in Canada. These data were created for use in climate research including climate change studies. They incorporate a number of adjustments applied to the original station data to address shifts due to changes in instruments and in observing procedures. Sometimes the observations from several stations were joined to generate a long time series. Users are strongly cautioned to determine the data suitability for their application. They should also be aware that ongoing research on adjustment techniques may result in future revisions of the datasets. The datasets are updated annually with the most recent data. The adjusted and homogenized data are provided for four climate elements: Surface air temperature, Precipitation, Surface pressure, and Surface wind speed. References Mekis, É. and L.A. Vincent, 2011: An overview of the second generation adjusted daily precipitation dataset for trend analysis in Canada. Atmosphere-Ocean, 49(2), 163-177. Vincent, L. A., M. M. Hartwell, and X. L. Wang, 2020: A third generation of homogenized temperature for trend analysis and monitoring changes in Canada’s climate. Atmosphere-Ocean., 58:3, 173-191, doi:10.1080/07055900.2020.1765728. Wan, H., X. L. Wang, V. R. Swail, 2010: Homogenization and trend analysis of Canadian near-surface wind speeds. Journal of Climate, 23, 1209-1225. Wan, H., X. L. Wang, V. R. Swail, 2007: A quality assurance system for Canadian hourly pressure data. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 46, 1804-1817.

This dataset series highlights the locations of research centres where scientists, technicians and staff work to create better opportunities for farmers and all Canadians through agricultural research and innovation.

Catch, effort, location (latitude, longitude), relative abundance indices, and associated biological data from groundfish multi-species bottom trawl surveys in Queen Charlotte Sound (QCS), Hecate Strait (HS), West Coast Vancouver Island (WCVI), West Coast Haida Gwaii (WCHG) and the Strait of Georgia (SOG), British Columbia. Introduction This is a set of long-term and coordinated surveys that together cover the continental shelf and upper slope of most of the British Columbia coast. The objectives of these surveys are to provide fishery-independent abundance indices of all demersal fish species available to bottom trawling and to collect biological samples of selected species. The surveys follow a random depth-stratified design and the sampling units are 2 km by 2 km blocks. The synoptic bottom trawl surveys are conducted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in collaboration with the Canadian Groundfish Research and Conservation Society (CGRCS), a non-profit society composed of participants in the British Columbia commercial groundfish trawl fishery. The Queen Charlotte Sound and West Coast Haida Gwaii surveys are conducted under collaborative agreements, with the CGRCS providing chartered commercial fishing vessels and field technicians, while DFO provides in-kind contributions for running the surveys including personnel and equipment. The Hecate Strait, West Coast Vancouver Island, and Strait of Georgia surveys are conducted by DFO and have typically taken place on the Canadian Coast Guard research vessel W.E. Ricker. In years when the W.E. Ricker has not been available, the Hecate Strait and West Coast Vancouver Island surveys have taken place on chartered industry vessels.

Cumulative heat-energy satisfies the essential requirement of field crop growth and development towards a high yield and good quality of agricultural crop products. Agriculture is an important primary production sector in Canada. Agricultural production, profitability, sustainability and food security depend on many agrometeorological factors. Extreme weather events in Canada, such as drought, floods, heat waves, frosts and high intensity storms, have the ability to significantly impact field crop production. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) have together developed a suite of extreme agrometeorological indices based on four main categories of weather factors: temperature, precipitation, heat, and wind. The extreme weather indices are intended as short-term prediction tools and generated using ECCC’s medium range forecasts to create a weekly index product on a daily basis.

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. Multiple layers are provided. First, the fire season length is shown across Canada for a reference period (1981-2010). Difference in projected fire season length compared to reference period is shown for the short- (2011-2040), medium- (2041-2070), and long-term (2071-2100) under the RCP 8.5 (continued emissions increases) and, for the long-term (2071-2100), under RCP 2.6 (rapid emissions reductions).