As part of the Pan-Canadian approach to transforming Species at Risk conservation in Canada, a total of 11 Priority Places were affirmed by federal, provincial, and territorial governments in December 2018. The places selected have significant biodiversity, concentrations of species at risk, and opportunities to advance conservation efforts. In each Priority Place, the federal and provincial or territorial governments are working with Indigenous Peoples, partners, and stakeholders to develop conservation action implementation plans. Using a defined planning approach (such as the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation), these implementation plans identify key actions to address the greatest threats to species. Conservation implementation plans provide the foundation for collaborative action on the ground. The federal government, in collaboration with the provinces and territories, has agreed to the implementation of the Pan-Canadian Approach to Transforming Species at Risk Conservation in Canada. This new approach shifts from a single-species approach to conservation to one that focuses on multiple species and ecosystems. This enables conservation partners to work together to achieve better outcomes for Species at Risk. These 11 Priority Places are complemented by a suite of Community-Nominated Priority Places (CNPP), identified through an open call for applications. To learn more about the Priority Places initiative and the work undertaken by our partners to recover Species at Risk within these Priority Places, please visit our interactive website https://environmental-maps.canada.ca/CWS_Storylines/index-ca-en.html#/en/priority_places-lieux_prioritaires

True colour aerial photography at 57 centimetre resolution was collected on August 20th and 24th, 2009 by Nortek Resources of Thorburn, Nova Scotia (http://www.nortekresources.com/). Image classification was conducted using eCognition Developer v. 8 Software, which first segments the image into spectrally similar units, which were then classified manually. Additionally, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (Gulf Region, Moncton, NB) conducted a visual field survey in the same field season at 103 sites. From these sites 70% were used to assist in image classification, while the remainder were used to assess accuracy. Three classes were identified: i. Good Quality Eelgrass: relatively dense, clean, green blades with minimal epiphytes or algal growth. ii. Medium Quality Eelgrass: predominately green blades that may have some epiphyte or algal growth. These stands can be less or equally dense as Good Quality Eelgrass, but the best grasses are certainly not as abundant. iii. Eelgrass Absent/Poor Quality: eelgrass is absent, or if it is present it is typically covered with epiphytes or other algae or dying or dead. Eelgrass was classified correctly 96.7% of the time (30/31 = 0.967).

Points, polylines and polygons where species and features have been found, harvested or detailed. Community Based Coastal Resource Inventory (CCRI) – Fisheries and Oceans Canada in conjunction with several Federal and Provincial agencies created, implemented, and managed a program which set out to develop a coastal resource inventory based on the traditional knowledge of local residents. Through partnerships with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Regional Economic Development (RED) Boards and other community based groups the project assembled a database containing several decade’s worth of local knowledge. The value of the information collected came through individual interviews with people who had extensive knowledge of the immediate geography and resource, having lived, worked and harvested the regions over a lifetime. This project ran from 1996 to 2007.

A revised qualitative assessment of the hydrocarbon resource potential is presented for the Hudson Bay sedimentary basin that underlies Hudson Bay and adjacent onshore areas of Ontario, Manitoba, and Nunavut. The Hudson Basin is a large intracratonic sedimentary basin thatpreserves dominantly Ordovician to Devonian aged limestone and evaporite strata. Maximum preserved sediment thickness is about 2.5 km. Source rock is the petroleum system element that has the lowest chance of success; the potential source rock is thin, may be discontinuous, and the thin sedimentarycover may not have been sufficient to achieve the temperatures required to generate and expel oil from a source rock over much of the basin. The highest potential is in the center of the basin, where the hydrocarbon potential is considered amp;lt;'Mediumamp;gt;'. Hydrocarbon potential decreasestowards the edges of the basin due to fewer plays being present, and thinner strata reduce the chance of oil generation and expulsion. Quantitative hydrocarbon assessment considers seven plays. Input parameters for field size and field density (per unit area) are based on analog Michigan, Williston,and Illinois intracratonic sedimentary basins that are about the same age and that had similar depositional settings to Hudson Basin. Basin-wide play and local prospect chances of success were assigned based on local geological conditions in Hudson Bay. Each of the seven plays were analyzed in Roseand Associates PlayRA software, which performs a Monte Carlo simulation using the local chance of success matrix and field size and prospect numbers estimated from analog basins. Hudson sedimentary basin has a mean estimate of 67.3 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent and a 10% chance ofhaving 202.2 or more million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent. The mean chance for the largest expected pool is about 15 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE), and there is only a 10% chance of there being a field larger than 23.2 MMBOE recoverable. The small expected fieldsizes are based on the large analog data set from Michigan, Williston and Illinois basins, and are due to the geological conditions that create the traps. The small size of the largest expected field, the low chance of exploration success, and the small overall resource make it unlikely that there are any economically recoverable hydrocarbons in the Hudson Basin in the foreseeable future. The Southampton Island area of interest includes 93 087 km2 of nearshore waters around Southampton Island and Chesterfield Inlet in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. Of the total resource estimated for Hudson Bay, 14 million barrels are apportioned to the Southampton Island Area of Interest.

Three marine spatial planning areas are delineated in Eastern Canada to define the spatial extents of marine spatial plans being led by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO): the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence (EGSL), the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) Shelves, and the Scotian Shelf and Bay of Fundy. The EGSL planning area includes the St. Lawrence River estuary from northeast of Île d’Orléans, Quebec, the Saguenay River estuary, and the entire Gulf of St. Lawrence as far north as the Strait of Belle Isle (NAFO Divisions 4RST). The NL Shelves planning area includes areas off southern, eastern and northern Newfoundland, part of the Churchill River and Lake Melville, as well as off the Labrador coast to the extent of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) (NAFO Divisions 2GHJ and 3KLNOP). The Scotian Shelf and Bay of Fundy planning area includes DFO Maritimes’ administrative region off the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia to the extent of the EEZ, the Bay of Fundy and the Canadian portion of the Gulf of Maine (NAFO Divisions 4VWX, 5Ze, and the Canadian portion of 5Y). The French EEZ for St. Pierre et Miquelon is excluded from the three planning areas. These planning areas are derived from Federal Marine Bioregions (https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/23eb8b56-dac8-4efc-be7c-b8fa11ba62e9) that were developed by a Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat process using ecosystem-based management principles to define 13 ecological bioregions that have informed but not directed DFO implementation of marine spatial planning.

The atlas provides printable maps, Web Services and downloadable data files representing seabirds at-sea densities in eastern Canada. The information provided on the open data web site can be used to identify areas where seabirds at sea are found in eastern Canada. However, low survey effort or high variation in some areas introduces uncertainty in the density estimates provided. The data and maps found on the open data web site should therefore be interpreted with an understanding of this uncertainty. Data were collected using ships of opportunity surveys and therefore spatial and seasonal coverage varies considerably. Densities are computed using distance sampling to adjust for variation in detection rates among observers and survey conditions. Depending on conditions, seabirds can be difficult to identify to species level. Therefore, densities at higher taxonomic levels are provided. more details in the document: Atlas_SeabirdsAtSea-OiseauxMarinsEnMer.pdf. By clicking on "View on Map" you will visualize a example of the density measured for all species combined from April to July - 2006-2020. ESRI REST or WMS map services can be added to your web maps or opened directly in your desktop mapping applications. These are alternatives to downloading and provide densities for all taxonomical groups and species as well as survey effort.

This entry provides access to surficial geology maps that have been published by the Geological survey of Canada. Two series of maps are available: "A Series" maps, published from 1909 to 2010 and "Canadian Geoscience Maps", published since 2010. Three types of CGM-series maps are available: 1)Surficial Geology: based on expert-knowledge full air photo interpretation (may include interpretive satellite imagery, Digital Elevation Models (DEM)), incorporating field data and ground truthing resulting from extensive, systematic fieldwork across the entire map area. Air photo interpretation includes map unit/deposit genesis, texture, thickness, structure, morphology, depositional or erosional environment, ice flow or meltwater direction, age/cross-cutting relationships, landscape evolution and associated geological features, complemented by additional overlay modifiers, points and linear features, selected from over 275 different geological elements in the Surficial Data Model. Wherever possible, legacy data is also added to the map. 2)Reconnaissance Surficial Geology: based on expert-knowledge full air photo interpretation (may include interpretive satellite imagery, DEMs), with limited or no fieldwork. Air photo interpretation includes map unit/deposit genesis, texture, thickness, structure, morphology, depositional or erosional environment, ice flow or meltwater direction, age/cross-cutting relationships, landscape evolution and associated geological features, complemented by additional overlay modifiers, points and linear features, selected from over 275 different geological elements in the Surficial Data Model. Wherever possible, legacy data is also added to the map. 3)Predictive Surficial Geology: derived from one or more methods of remote predictive mapping (RPM) using different satellite imagery, spectral characteristics of vegetation and surface moisture, machine processing, algorithms etc., DEMs, where raster data are converted to vector, with some expert-knowledge air photo interpretation (training areas or post-verification areas), varying degrees of non-systematic fieldwork, and the addition of any legacy data available. Each map is based on a version of the Geological Survey of Canada's Surficial Data Model (https://doi.org/10.4095/315021), thus providing an easily accessible national surficial geological framework and context in a standardized format to all users. "A series" maps were introduced in 1909 and replaced by CGM maps in 2010. The symbols and vocabulary used on those maps was not as standardized as they are in the CGM maps. Some "A series" maps were converted into, or redone, as CGM maps, Both versions are available whenever that is the case. In addition to CGM and "A series" maps, some surficial geology maps are published in the Open File series. Those maps are not displayed in this entry, but can be found and accessed using the NRCan publications website, GEOSCAN:(https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca).

The Bedrock Index provides a spatial record of the location of all Bedrock maps published by the Geological Survey of Canada and hosted on Geoscan. The index has three "series" of maps; CGM, A series, and preliminary maps. In cases where there have been multiple editions of a map, the most recent record is reported in the Bedrock Index attribute table. Maps published in Open File documents are not recorded in the bedrock index. The "A" series maps were produced from 1909 to 2010 and have been replaced by the CGM (Canadian Geoscience Maps) series. CGM maps began production in 2010 and are still being published. Preliminary maps were published from 1941 to 2021.

The joint Natural Resources Canada/Department of Fisheries and Oceans Marine Spatial Planning Program requires the highest resolution marine based bathymetric elevation data and adjacent land based topographic elevation data that are available. This digital elevation model of Canada's west coast compiles the best data available from multiple government agencies to create a regional model gridded at 10 meter spacing. The transitions between the marine and terrestrial areas are seamless creating a continuous surface of elevations for scientific research and mapping.