Forests
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14 Class - Canadian Ecological Domain Classification from Satellite Data. Satellite derived data including 1) topography, 2) landscape productivity based on photosynthetic activity, and 3) land cover were used as inputs to create an environmental regionalization of the over 10 million km2 of Canada’s terrestrial land base. The outcomes of this clustering consists of three main outputs. An initial clustering of 100 classes was generated using a two-stage multivariate classification process. Next, an agglomerative hierarchy using a log-likelihood distance measure was applied to create a 40 and then a 14 class regionalization, aimed to meaningfully group ecologically similar components of Canada's terrestrial landscape. For more information (including a graphical illustration of the cluster hierarchy) and to cite this data please use: Coops, N.C., Wulder, M.A., Iwanicka, D. 2009. An environmental domain classification of Canada using earth observation data for biodiversity assessment. Ecological Informatics, Vol. 4, No. 1, Pp. 8-22, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2008.09.005. ( Coops et al. 2009).
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High resolution forest change for Canada (Change Type) 1985-2011 The forest change data included in this product is national in scope (entire forested ecosystem) and represents the first wall-to-wall characterization of wildfire and harvest in Canada at a spatial resolution commensurate with human impacts. The information outcomes represent 27 years of stand replacing change in Canada’s forests, derived from a single, consistent spatially-explicit data source, derived in a fully automated manner. This demonstrated capacity to characterize forests at a resolution that captures human impacts is key to establishing a baseline for detailed monitoring of forested ecosystems from management and science perspectives. Time series of Landsat data were used to characterize national trends in stand replacing forest disturbances caused by wildfire and harvest for the period 1985–2011 for Canada's 650 million hectare forested ecosystems (https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0034425717301360 ). Landsat data has a 30m spatial resolution, so the change information is highly detailed and is commensurate with that of human impacts. These data represent annual stand replacing forest changes. The stand replacing disturbances types labeled are wildfire and harvest, with lower confidence wildfire and harvest, also shared. The distinction and sharing of lower class membership likelihoods is to indicate to users that some change events were more difficult to allocate to a change type, but are generally found to be in the correct category. For an overview on the data, image processing, and time series change detection methods applied, as well as information on independent accuracy assessment of the data, see Hermosilla et al. (2016; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2016.1187673). The data available is, 1. a binary change/no-change; 2. Change year; and, 3. Change type. When using this data, please cite as: White, J.C., M.A. Wulder, T. Hermosilla, N.C. Coops, and G. Hobart. (2017). A nationwide annual characterization of 25 years of forest disturbance and recovery for Canada using Landsat time series. Remote Sensing of Environment. 192: 303-321. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2017.03.035. https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0034425717301360 Geographic extent: Canada's forested ecosystems (~ 650 Mha) Time period: 1985–2011
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100 Class - Canadian Ecological Domain Classification from Satellite Data. Satellite derived data including 1) topography, 2) landscape productivity based on photosynthetic activity, and 3) land cover were used as inputs to create an environmental regionalization of the over 10 million km2 of Canada’s terrestrial land base. The outcomes of this clustering consists of three main outputs. An initial clustering of 100 classes was generated using a two-stage multivariate classification process. Next, an agglomerative hierarchy using a log-likelihood distance measure was applied to create a 40 and then a 14 class regionalization, aimed to meaningfully group ecologically similar components of Canada's terrestrial landscape. For more information (including a graphical illustration of the cluster hierarchy) and to cite this data please use: Coops, N.C., Wulder, M.A., Iwanicka, D. 2009. An environmental domain classification of Canada using earth observation data for biodiversity assessment. Ecological Informatics, Vol. 4, No. 1, Pp. 8-22, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2008.09.005. ( Coops et al. 2009).
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Dynamic Habitat Index. (2000-2005) Satellite derived estimates of photosynthetically active radiation can be obtained from satellites such as MODIS. Knowledge of the land cover allows for calculation the fraction of incoming solar radiation that is absorbed by vegetation. This fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (fPAR) absorbed by vegetation describes rate at which carbon dioxide and energy from sunlight are assimilated into carbohydrates during photosynthesis of plant tissues. The summation of carbon assimilated by the vegetation canopy over time yields the landscape's gross primary productivity. Daily MODIS imagery is the basis for periodic composites and monthly data products. Over the 6 year period from 2000-2005, we calculate the annual average cumulative total of 72 monthly fPAR measurements, to describe the integrated annual vegetative production of the landscape, the integrated average annual minimum monthly fPAR measurement, which describes the annual minimum green cover of the observed landscape, and the integrated average of the annual covariance of fPAR, which describes the seasonality of the observed landscape. We also share the combination of the annual integrated values for visualization and analysis as the Dynamic Habitat Index (with additional information in Coops et al. 2008). When using this data, please cite as: Coops, N.C., Wulder, M.A., Duro, D.C., Han, T. and Berry, S., 2008. The development of a Canadian dynamic habitat index using multi-temporal satellite estimates of canopy light absorbance. Ecological Indicators, 8(5), pp.754-766. ( Coops et al. 2008).
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High resolution forest change for Canada (Binary Change/No-change) 1985-2011 The forest change data included in this product is national in scope (entire forested ecosystem) and represents the first wall-to-wall characterization of wildfire and harvest in Canada at a spatial resolution commensurate with human impacts. The information outcomes represent 27 years of stand replacing change in Canada’s forests, derived from a single, consistent spatially-explicit data source, derived in a fully automated manner. This demonstrated capacity to characterize forests at a resolution that captures human impacts is key to establishing a baseline for detailed monitoring of forested ecosystems from management and science perspectives. Time series of Landsat data were used to characterize national trends in stand replacing forest disturbances caused by wildfire and harvest for the period 1985–2011 for Canada's 650 million hectare forested ecosystems (https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0034425717301360 ). Landsat data has a 30m spatial resolution, so the change information is highly detailed and is commensurate with that of human impacts. These data represent annual stand replacing forest changes. The stand replacing disturbances types labeled are wildfire and harvest, with lower confidence wildfire and harvest, also shared. The distinction and sharing of lower class membership likelihoods is to indicate to users that some change events were more difficult to allocate to a change type, but are generally found to be in the correct category. For an overview on the data, image processing, and time series change detection methods applied, as well as information on independent accuracy assessment of the data, see Hermosilla et al. (2016; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2016.1187673). The data available is, 1. a binary change/no-change; 2. Change year; and, 3. Change type. When using this data, please cite as: White, J.C., M.A. Wulder, T. Hermosilla, N.C. Coops, and G. Hobart. (2017). A nationwide annual characterization of 25 years of forest disturbance and recovery for Canada using Landsat time series. Remote Sensing of Environment. 192: 303-321. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2017.03.035. https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0034425717301360 Geographic extent: Canada's forested ecosystems (~ 650 Mha) Time period: 1985–2011
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40 Class - Canadian Ecological Domain Classification from Satellite Data. Satellite derived data including 1) topography, 2) landscape productivity based on photosynthetic activity, and 3) land cover were used as inputs to create an environmental regionalization of the over 10 million km2 of Canada’s terrestrial land base. The outcomes of this clustering consists of three main outputs. An initial clustering of 100 classes was generated using a two-stage multivariate classification process. Next, an agglomerative hierarchy using a log-likelihood distance measure was applied to create a 40 and then a 14 class regionalization, aimed to meaningfully group ecologically similar components of Canada's terrestrial landscape. For more information (including a graphical illustration of the cluster hierarchy) and to cite this data please use: Coops, N.C., Wulder, M.A., Iwanicka, D. 2009. An environmental domain classification of Canada using earth observation data for biodiversity assessment. Ecological Informatics, Vol. 4, No. 1, Pp. 8-22, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2008.09.005. ( Coops et al. 2009).
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High resolution forest change for Canada (Change Year) 1985-2011 The forest change data included in this product is national in scope (entire forested ecosystem) and represents the first wall-to-wall characterization of wildfire and harvest in Canada at a spatial resolution commensurate with human impacts. The information outcomes represent 27 years of stand replacing change in Canada’s forests, derived from a single, consistent spatially-explicit data source, derived in a fully automated manner. This demonstrated capacity to characterize forests at a resolution that captures human impacts is key to establishing a baseline for detailed monitoring of forested ecosystems from management and science perspectives. Time series of Landsat data were used to characterize national trends in stand replacing forest disturbances caused by wildfire and harvest for the period 1985–2011 for Canada's 650 million hectare forested ecosystems (https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0034425717301360 ). Landsat data has a 30m spatial resolution, so the change information is highly detailed and is commensurate with that of human impacts. These data represent annual stand replacing forest changes. The stand replacing disturbances types labeled are wildfire and harvest, with lower confidence wildfire and harvest, also shared. The distinction and sharing of lower class membership likelihoods is to indicate to users that some change events were more difficult to allocate to a change type, but are generally found to be in the correct category. For an overview on the data, image processing, and time series change detection methods applied, as well as information on independent accuracy assessment of the data, see Hermosilla et al. (2016; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2016.1187673). The data available is, 1. a binary change/no-change; 2. Change year; and, 3. Change type. When using this data, please cite as: White, J.C., M.A. Wulder, T. Hermosilla, N.C. Coops, and G. Hobart. (2017). A nationwide annual characterization of 25 years of forest disturbance and recovery for Canada using Landsat time series. Remote Sensing of Environment. 192: 303-321. DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2017.03.035. https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0034425717301360 Geographic extent: Canada's forested ecosystems (~ 650 Mha) Time period: 1985–2011
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Forest Elevation(Ht) Covariance 2015 Coefficient of variation of first returns height (%). Represents the variability in canopy heights relative to the mean canopy height. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). Products relating the structure of Canada's forested ecosystems have been generated and made openly accessible. The shared products are based upon peer-reviewed science and relate aspects of forest structure including: (i) metrics calculated directly from the lidar point cloud with heights normalized to heights above the ground surface (e.g., canopy cover, height), and (ii) modelled inventory attributes, derived using an area-based approach generated by using co-located ground plot and ALS data (e.g., volume, biomass). Forest structure estimates were generated by combining information from lidar plots (Wulder et al. 2012) with Landsat pixel-based composites (White et al. 2014; Hermosilla et al. 2016) using a nearest neighbour imputation approach with a Random Forests-based distance metric. These products were generated for strategic-level forest monitoring information needs and are not intended to support operational-level forest management. All products have a spatial resolution of 30 m. For a detailed description of the data, methods applied, and accuracy assessment results see Matasci et al. (2018). When using this data, please cite as follows: Matasci, G., Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M.A., White, J.C., Coops, N.C., Hobart, G.W., Bolton, D.K., Tompalski, P., Bater, C.W., 2018b. Three decades of forest structural dynamics over Canada's forested ecosystems using Landsat time-series and lidar plots. Remote Sensing of Environment 216, 697-714. Matasci et al. 2018) Geographic extent: Canada's forested ecosystems (~ 650 Mha) Time period: 1985–2011
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Dominant Species Map 2015 The data represent dominant tree species for British Columbia forests in 2015, are based upon Landsat data and modeling, with results mapped at 30 m spatial resolution. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). The map was generated with the Random Forests classifier that used predictor variables derived from Landsat time series including surface reflectance, land cover, forest disturbance, and forest structure, and ancillary variables describing the topography and position. Training and validation samples were derived from the Vegetation Resources Inventory (VRI), from a pool of polygons with homogeneous internal conditions and with low discrepancies with the remotely sensed predictions. Local models were applied over 100x100 km tiles that considered training samples from the 5x5 neighbouring tiles to avoid edge effects. An overall accuracy of 72% was found for the species which occupy 80% of the forested areas. Satellite data and modeling have demonstrated the capacity for up-to-date, wall-to-wall, forest attribute maps at sub-stand level for British Columbia, Canada. BC Species Likelihood 2015 The tree species class membership likelihood distribution data included in this product focused on the province of British Columbia, based upon Landsat data and modeling, with results mapped at 30 m spatial resolution. The data represent tree species class membership likelihood in 2015. The map was generated with the Random Forests classifier that used predictor variables derived from Landsat time series including surface reflectance, land cover, forest disturbance, and forest structure, and ancillary variables describing the topography and position. Training and validation samples were derived from the Vegetation Resources Inventory (VRI) selecting from a stratified pool of polygons with homogeneous internal conditions and with low discrepancies when related to remotely sensed information. Local models were applied over 100x100 km tiles that, to avoid edge effects, considered training samples from the 5x5 neighbouring tiles. An overall accuracy of 72% was found for the species which occupy 80% of the forested areas. As an element of the mapping process, we also obtain the votes received for each class by the Random Forest models. The votes can be understood as analogous to class membership likelihoods, providing enriched information on land cover class uncertainty for use in modeling. Tree species class membership likelihoods lower than 5% have been masked and converted to zero. When using this data, please cite as: Shang, C., Coops, N.C., Wulder, M.A., White, J.C., Hermosilla, T., 2020. Update and spatial extension of strategic forest inventories using time series remote sensing and modeling. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 84, 101956. DOI: 10.1016/j.jag.2019.101956 ( Shang et al. 2020).
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This dataset provides treed area dynamics across Canada's 650 Mha forested ecosystems from 1984 to 2022, derived from Landsat-based annual land cover layers at a 30-m spatial resolution. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). This dataset identifies areas that remained treed, transitioned to treed (newly treed), or transitioned to other cover that is not treed vegetation (was-treed). The data enable national and regional assessments of long-term changes in treed area, capturing trends in treed area, post-disturbance recovery, and shifts in forest extent. When using this data, please cite as: Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M.A., White, J.C., Bater, C.W., Baral, S.K., Leach, J.A., 2025. Expansion of treed area over Canada’s forested ecosystems: spatial and temporal trends. Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research 98(5) 786-799. https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpaf015. (Hermosilla et al. 2025)
Arctic SDI catalogue