Alberta Land Inventory (ALI) and Canada Land Inventory (CLI) Landform

This dataset is produced for the Government of Alberta and is available to the general public. Please consult the Distribution Information of this metadata for the appropriate contact to acquire this dataset. Alberta Land Inventory (ALI) and Canada Land Inventory (CLI) Landform consists of a single polygon feature class with associated attributes. These attributes describe the landform polygons in terms of parent geologic material, surface form, generalized texture, and slope. The attribution includes the original ALI/CLI coding as well as the equivalent Physical Land Classification (PLC) codes. CLI and ALI landform polygons were photo interpreted in the 1960's and 70's. The linework was transferred to mylar overlay and 319 maps were published at a scale of 1:63360, using the National Topographic Series (NTS) maps as a base. The structure of the map symbols is slightly different for the two series. There is additional free-form text on the CLI landform maps to describe the direction of glacial movement and presence of specific geomorphic features such as eskers but the information is essentially the same for the two series. In some cases, a single base map may have both the initial CLI landform mapping on part of the map sheet and subsequent ALI landform mapping on the remainder of the same sheet. These published hardcopy maps and mylars were later scanned into .tif images and then processed into a single ArcInfo coverage. Scanned images were georeferenced, cleaned and vectorized. The resulting landform polygons were attributed and merged into a single coverage, using permanent water bodies from Alberta's Base Features Hydrography Polygons as a base. The ALI and CLI landform polygon feature class is derived from this merged coverage.