• Arctic SDI catalogue
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Nearshore Bottom Patches for Pacific Canada. Version 1.0

The shallow, coastal regions of the world’s oceans are highly productive ecosystems providing important habitat for commercial, forage, endangered, and iconic species. Given the diversity of ecosystem services produced or supported by this ecosystem, a better understanding of its structure and function is central to developing an ecosystem-based approach to management. However this region termed the ‘white strip’ by marine geologists because of the general lack of high-resolution bathymetric data - is dynamic, highly variable, and difficult to access making data collection challenging and expensive. Since substrate is a key indicator of habitat in this important ecosystem, we created a continuous substrate map of Bottom Patches (BoPs) from the best available bottom type data using an approach that is simple, quantitative, and transparent making it amenable to iterative improvement as data quality and availability improve. To provide subsequent analyses (such as habitat models) with some confidence in the defined bottom type values, we developed a corresponding confidence surface based on the agreement of, and distance between observations. Such data are critical to assessments of species distributions and anthropogenic risk.

Bottom patches (BoPs) have been created to represent bottom type for the entire Pacific Canadian coast from the high high water line to a depth of 50 metres (m). As a polygon representation, the BoPs describe patches of similar substrate prescribed by depth classes and the available field observations. In the areas where no observations are available, predicted bottom type values are used. The approach is described in Gregr et al. (2013), as a spatial framework for representing nearshore ecosystems.

Accuracy of the bottom type depends on a multitude of factors but primarily the reliability and density of the bottom type observations. The horizontal accuracy of these data likely ranges from metres to 10s of metres because of the source data or data processing required. Areas with a higher data density, where the data show strong coherence, are understood to have higher accuracy. The BoPs use depth ribbons (polygons describing bathymetric ecozones) as an input. Depth ribbons for Pacific Canada were created from a high resolution (20 x 20 m2) bathymetry. Given the resolution of these data, processing was facilitated by dividing the Pacific Coast into 5 regions.

The West Coast of Vancouver Island, extending from Cape Sutil in the North past Port San Juan to the South, includes a total of 110,313 BoP polygons. Bottom Patches for Queen Charlotte Strait and Strait of Georgia regions were combined for a total of 235,754 BoP polygons. The North Central Coast region, extending from the Alaskan border in the North to Cape Caution in the South, includes a total of 431,639 BoP polygons. The Haida Gwaii region includes a total of 86,825 BoP polygons.

These data are intended for scientific research only. The developers (Fisheries and Oceans Canada, SciTech Environmental Consulting) are not responsible for damages resulting from any omissions or errors that may be contained in this dataset and expressly disclaims any warranty of fitness for any particular purpose. Developers shall not be liable for any losses, financial or otherwise, due to the use of these data. The user assumes the entire risk as to the suitability, results and performance of the dataset for their proposed use. Please credit SciTech and Fisheries and Oceans Canada as the source of the data in any maps, reports, or articles that are printed or published on paper or the Internet.

Simple

Date ( RI_367 )
2018-10-17
Date ( RI_366 )
2018-01-31
Date ( RI_368 )
2022-12-08
Date ( RI_368 )
2024-10-03
Date ( RI_368 )
2025-03-13
RI_410
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Ecosystems and Ocean Science/Pacific Science/Ecosystem Science Division - Joanne Lessard ( Research Scientist )
Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Rd , Nanaimo , British Columbia , V9T 6N7 , Canada
1 (250) 756-8364
Status
completed; complété RI_593
Maintenance and update frequency
asNeeded; auBesoin RI_540
Keywords ( RI_526 )
  • Sea Floor
Keywords ( RI_525 )
  • Pacific
  • British Columbia
  • Canada
  • Cascadia
Keywords ( RI_528 )
  • Substrate
  • Bottom Type
  • base mapping
  • sea floor
  • sea bed
Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus Thésaurus des sujets de base du gouvernement du Canada ( RI_528 )
  • Aquatic ecosystems
  • Ocean floor
  • Coasts
  • Sediments
  • Coastal waters
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
textTable; texteTable RI_637
Metadata language
eng
Topic category
  • Biota
Begin date
1991-01-01
End date
2016-12-31
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thumbnail


Reference system identifier
https://epsg.io / EPSG:4326 /
Distribution format
  • CSV ( Unknown )

  • PDF ( Unknown )

  • SHP ( Unknown )

RI_412
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Ecosystems and Ocean Science/Pacific Science/Ecosystem Science Division - Joanne Lessard ( Research Scientist )
Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Rd , Nanaimo , British Columbia , V9T 6N7 , Canada
1 (250) 756-8364
OnLine resource
Data Dictionary ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;PDF;eng,fra

OnLine resource
Nearshore Bottom Patches for Pacific Canada. Version 1.0 -- GIS Hub Metadata ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;PDF;eng

OnLine resource
Nearshore Bottom Patches for Pacific Canada. Version 1.0 -- GIS Hub Metadata ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;PDF;fra

OnLine resource
Bottom Patches for the North Central Coast of British Columbia ( HTTPS )

Dataset;SHP;eng

OnLine resource
Bottom Patches for West Coast Vancouver Island ( HTTPS )

Dataset;SHP;eng

OnLine resource
Bottom Patches for Queen Charlotte and Strait of Georgia ( HTTPS )

Dataset;SHP;eng

OnLine resource
Bottom Patches for Haida Gwaii ( HTTPS )

Dataset;SHP;eng

OnLine resource
Data Dictionary ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;CSV;eng,fra

OnLine resource
Research Document ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;PDF;eng

OnLine resource
Nearshore Bottom Patches for Pacific Canada ( ESRI REST: Map Service )

Web Service;ESRI REST;eng

OnLine resource
Nearshore Bottom Patches for Pacific Canada ( ESRI REST: Map Service )

Web Service;ESRI REST;fra

File identifier
6cda0f8d-110e-423d-8d7a-bf8a40eaa26e XML
Metadata language
eng; CAN
Character set
utf8; utf8 RI_458
Hierarchy level
dataset; jeuDonnées RI_622
Date stamp
2025-03-13T17:47:59.132Z
Metadata standard name
North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003 - Geographic information - Metadata
Metadata standard version
CAN/CGSB-171.100-2009
RI_414
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Ecosystems and Ocean Science/Pacific Science/Ecosystem Science Division - Marine Spatial Ecology and Analysis Section - Data Stewardship Unit ( )
Institute of Ocean Sciences 9860 West Saanich Road P.O. Box 6000 , Sidney , British Columbia , V8L 4B2 , Canada
 
 

Overviews

overview
comox_baynes_BoP Thumbnail
overview
NCC_Bottom_Patches_Thumbnail

Spatial extent

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Keywords


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Associated resources

Not available


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