In 2014, the Earth Observation Team of the Science and Technology Branch (STB) at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) repeated the process of generating annual crop inventory digital maps using satellite imagery to for all of Canada, in support of a national crop inventory. A Decision Tree (DT) based methodology was applied using optical (Landsat-8) and radar (RADARSAT-2) based satellite images, and having a final spatial resolution of 30m. In conjunction with satellite acquisitions, ground-truth information was provided by provincial crop insurance companies and point observations from the BC Ministry of Agriculture and our regional AAFC colleagues.

The National Ecological Framework for Canada's "Surficial Geology by Ecodistrict” dataset contains tables that provide surficial geology information with the ecodistrict framework polygons. It provides codes that characterize surficial geology (unconsolidated geologic materials) and their English and French-language descriptions as well as information about the area and percentage of the polygon that the material occupies.

Towfish (sidescan and video) and echo sounder surveys were utilized to examine bottom type and macrophyte cover within the area of two coastal marine finfish aquaculture sites, one in New Brunswick (Welch Cove) and one in Nova Scotia (Jordan Bay). Both towfish and echo sounder data could be used independently of one another. However, the towfish data were very useful for ground truthing echo sounder based classifications. All survey data were placed into a GIS which could be used to answer management questions such as the placement of cages at sites, benthic impacts and baseline conditions to determine long term changes. Cite this data as: Vandermeulen H. Data of: Exploratory Video-Sidescan and Echosounder Survey of Welch Cove. Published: June 2021. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/0083e317-8bb5-492a-8348-c021e183f307

The National Ecological Framework for Canada's "Surficial Geology by Ecoprovince” dataset contains tables that provide surficial geology information with the ecoprovince framework polygons. It provides codes that characterize surficial geology (unconsolidated geologic materials) and their English and French-language descriptions as well as information about the area and percentage of the polygon that the material occupies.

The ecological classification of Quebec territory consists of mapping and describing ecological units in a system with nine levels of perception between the continental and landscape scales. It presents the diversity of terrestrial ecosystems in all of Quebec taking into account both the characteristics of the vegetation (physiognomy, structure and composition) and the physical environment (relief, geology, geomorphology, hydrography). The nine levels that compose it are: the vegetation zone and sub-zone at the continental scale (1,000,000 km2), the bioclimatic domain and sub-domain at the national level (100,000 km2), the ecological region and subregion at the regional scale (10,000 km2) and the regional landscape unit, the ecological district and the vegetation stage at the landscape scale (10,000 km2) and the regional landscape unit, the ecological district and the vegetation stage at the landscape scale (100 to 1,000 km2).**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

The Canada Land Inventory (CLI), 1 100,000, Land Capability and Limitation for Agriculture dataset illustrates the varying potential of a specific area for agricultural production. Classes of land capability for agriculture are based on mineral soils grouped according to their potential and limitations for agricultural use. The classes indicate the degree of limitation imposed by the soil in its use for mechanized agriculture. The subclasses indicate the kinds of limitations that individually or in combination with others, are affecting agricultural land use. Characteristics of the soil as determined by soil surveys.

The “Biomass Inventory Cartographic Layer” dataset provides the information that is used with the Biomass Report Framework to generate a visual representation of the availability of agricultural and forestry biomass and municipal solid waste in Canada. In addition to yield and production information for biomass produced by the agricultural and forestry industries, this dataset also provides information about the demand for agricultural residues for cattle feed and bedding, tillage systems currently in use on agricultural lands, and land suitability for hybrid poplar and willow plantations that are grown specifically to produce biomass. Agricultural information includes the median annual residue yield and available residue amounts. Residue yields were calculated using crop-to-residue ratios. The available residue information includes the amount that is available after adjusting for the estimated demand of straw used for cattle feed and bedding. Forestry estimates include average residue production, based on forestry activities including permitted amounts of harvesting, mills in operation and mill production. Municipal Solid Waste information includes organic waste (food and yard), paper waste and total residential municipal solid waste (which includes organic and paper waste, among others).

The Ontario Raw Point Cloud (Imagery-Derived) is elevation point cloud data created from aerial photography from the Geospatial Ontario (GEO) imagery program. It was created using a pixel-autocorrelation process based on aerial photography collected by the imagery contractor for the GEO imagery program. The dataset consists of overlapping tiles in LAZ format and is 6.29 terabytes in size. Tiles are overlapping because the pixel-autocorrelation process extracts elevation values from overlapping stereo photo strips. No classification has been applied to the point cloud, however they are encoded with colour (RGB) values from the source photography. This data is for geospatial tech specialists, and is used by government, municipalities, conservation authorities and the private sector for land use planning and environmental analysis. __Related data__ For a product in non-overlapping tiles with a ground classification applied, see the [Ontario Classified Point Cloud (Imagery-Derived)](https://geohub.lio.gov.on.ca/datasets/febf17330adb4100a22738e1684b5feb). Raster derivatives have been created from the point clouds for some imagery projects. These products may meet your needs and are available for direct download. For a representation of bare earth, see [Ontario Digital Elevation Model (Imagery-Derived)](https://geohub.lio.gov.on.ca/maps/mnrf::ontario-digital-elevation-model-imagery-derived/about). For a model representing all surface features, see the [Ontario Digital Surface Model (Imagery-Derived)](https://geohub.lio.gov.on.ca/maps/mnrf::ontario-digital-surface-model-imagery-derived/about).

Effective fisheries and habitat management processes require knowledge of the distribution of areas of high ecological or biological significance. On the Scotian Shelf and Slope, a number of benthic ecologically or biologically significant areas consisting of habitat-forming species such as sponges and deep-water corals have been identified. However, knowledge of their spatial distribution is largely based on targeted surveys that are limited in their spatial extent. We used a species distribution modelling approach called random forest (RF) to predict the probability of occurrence and biomass of sponges, sea pens, and large and small gorgonian corals across the entire spatial extent of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO) Maritimes Region. We also modelled the rare sponge Vazella pourtalesi, which forms the largest known aggregation of its kind on the Scotian Shelf. We utilized a number of data sources including DFO multispecies trawl catch data and in situ benthic imagery observations. Most models had excellent predictive capacity with cross-validated Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC) values ranging from 0.760 to 0.977. Areas of suitable habitat were identified for each taxon and were contrasted against their known distribution and when applicable, the location of closure areas designated for their protection. Generalized additive models (GAMs) were developed to predict the biomass distribution of each taxonomic group and serve as a comparison to the RF models. The RF and GAM models provided comparable results, although GAMs provided superior predictions of biomass along the continental slope for some taxonomic groups. In the absence of data observations, the results of this study could be used to identify the potential distribution of sensitive benthic taxa for use in fisheries and habitat management applications. These results could also be used to refine significant concentrations of these taxa as identified through the kernel density analyses. Cite this data as: Beazley, Lindsay; Kenchington, Ellen; Murillo-Perez, Javier; Lirette, Camille; Guijarro-Sabaniel, Javier; McMillan, Andrew; Knudby, Anders (2019). Species Distribution Modelling of Corals and Sponges in the Maritimes Region for Use in the Identification of Significant Benthic Areas. Published July 2023. Ocean Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/356e92f3-5bf3-4810-98b1-3e10cd7742aa

This dataset contains measurements of water (chemistry and algal pigments) and sediment (chemistry and size fraction) quality in nearshore areas of Lake Huron surrounding cage aquaculture operations including North Channel, Manitoulin Island and Georgian Bay. Seasonal ice-free monitoring and sampling occurred in Ontario nearshore areas between 1998-2016. The dataset also contains the limits of detection and quantification for the parameters measured, GPS coordinates and depths (sample, Secchi, composite and maximum) for the lake sampling locations.