• Arctic SDI catalogue
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Coastal and epipelagic habitats of the St. Lawrence Estuary and Gulf - Database

A geospatial database involving 130 descriptors was created describing the pelagic and benthic habitats of the 0–30 m surface layer in the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence.

A grid made of 6.25 km² cells (2.5 x 2.5 km) was used to aggregate the data. Each of the 39,337 cells overlapping the marine environment was characterized using landscape, hydrographic, and oceanographic parameters determined from observations (including satellite imagery), a 3D circulation model, and published and unpublished material available at local and regional scales.

Purpose

The dataset provides useful information on the spatial extent of major coastal epipelagic habitats in the study area and can be used for mapping purposes and for analyses of species-habitat relationships.

Additional Information

The low tide limit was taken as the upper (0 m) boundary, but neighbouring landscape features, such as the proximity to freshwater inflows, surface area of the tidal zone, and characteristics of the shoreline, were also taken into consideration.

Also, each cell was classified as being marine, intertidal, or terrestrial using the high and low tide marks. Those marks were determined using NRCan CANVEC topographic map products (1:50,000). The high tide mark was determined as the limit between the land and water layers. The low tide mark (0 m depth) was determined as the lower limit of the tidal zone in areas with a tidal zone, and as the limit between the land and water layers elsewhere.

See the report mentioned below for a more detailed description of the treatments for each variable:

Dutil, J.-D., S. Proulx, P. Galbraith, J. Chassé and N. Lambert 2012. Coastal and epipelagic habitats of the St. Lawrence estuary and Gulf. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 3009 : ix +87 pp.

Simple

Date ( RI_366 )
2011
Date ( RI_367 )
2012
RI_414
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada - Olivier Parent ( Geomatics analyst )
850, route de la Mer, P.O. Box 1000 , Mont-Joli , G5H 3Z4 , Canada
Status
completed; complété RI_593
Maintenance and update frequency
asNeeded; auBesoin RI_540
Keywords ( RI_530 )
  • Coastal Habitat
  • Epipelagic Habitat
  • Seafloor Topography
  • Salinity
  • Turbidity
  • Current
  • Ice
Keywords ( RI_525 )
  • St. Lawrence Estuary
  • Gulf of St. Lawrence
  • Cabot Strait
  • St. Lawrence middle estuary
  • St. Lawrence lower estuary
  • Strait of Belle Isle
Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus Thésaurus des sujets de base du gouvernement du Canada ( RI_528 )
  • Physics
  • Hydrography
  • Topography
  • Temperature
  • Earth sciences
  • Oceanography
  • Salt water
  • Oceans
Classification
unclassified; nonClassifié RI_484
Use limitation
Open Government Licence - Canada (http://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada)
Access constraints
license; licence RI_606
Use constraints
license; licence RI_606
Spatial representation type
vector; vecteur RI_635
Metadata language
eng; CAN
Character set
utf8; utf8 RI_458
Topic category
  • Oceans
  • Environment
  • Geoscientific information
Begin date
1973
End date
2011
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Reference system identifier
https://epsg.io / EPSG:32198 / 7.4.1
Distribution format
  • ESRI REST ( 10.3.1 )

RI_414
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada - Olivier Parent ( Geomatics analyst )
850, route de la Mer, P.O. Box 1000 , Mont-Joli , G5H 3Z4 , Canada
OnLine resource
St. Lawrence coastal and epipelagic habitats ( HTTPS )

Dataset;SHP;eng,fra

OnLine resource
Data Dictionary ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;CSV;eng,fra

OnLine resource
St. Lawrence coastal and epipelagic habitats ( HTTPS )

Dataset;CSV;eng,fra

OnLine resource
St. Lawrence coastal and epipelagic habitats ( ESRI REST: Map Service )

Web Service;ESRI REST;eng

OnLine resource
St. Lawrence coastal and epipelagic habitats ( ESRI REST: Map Service )

Web Service;ESRI REST;fra

File identifier
5edf2b99-1058-438a-a450-155e888a5390 XML
Metadata language
fra; CAN
Character set
utf8; utf8 RI_458
Hierarchy level
dataset; jeuDonnées RI_622
Date stamp
2025-02-06T12:40:20.948Z
Metadata standard name
North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003 - Geographic information - Metadata
Metadata standard version
CAN/CGSB-171.100-2009
RI_420
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada - Section Gestion de données - Direction des avis, information et soutien scientifiques ( )
850, route de la Mer, P.O. Box 1000 , Mont-Joli , G5H 3Z4 ,
 
 

Overviews

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Spatial extent

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Keywords


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