Ecological Land Classification (ELC) is an approach which endeavours to subdivide the landscape into significant ecological units and to organize complex interrelationships into identified geographical areas with similar properties. It is a hierarchical system that captures information at the following scales as per the Ecological Land Classification and Evaluation Reference Manual (1980): Ecoprovince - >1:3 000 000 Ecoregion - 1:1 000 000 - 1:3 000 000 Ecodistrict - 1:250 000 - 1:1 000 000 Ecosection - 1:100 000 - 1:250 000 Ecosite - 1:10 000 - 1:20 000 Ecoelement - 1:1 000 - 1:5 000. Note that the upper two levels are referred to as Natural Region and Natural Subregion in the more recent Ecological Land Classification reports. There are also some variations in this hierarchy for individual study areas. The data is available as TIFF image files packaged together with the reports and other supporting documents divided alphabetically.

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. The Alberta Ground Cover Classification Mosaic is a land cover dataset for the province of Alberta. It is a composite of the Alberta Ground Cover Classification (AGCC) created by Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development for the green areas of the province and the Land Cover for Agricultural Regions of Canada, circa 2000 created by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for the white areas of the province.

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. The Ecological Land Classification (ELC) Status is a supporting dataset to the Ecological Land Classification dataset. The ELC Status represents a geodatabase feature class of the ELC study areas. There is attribution to describe the scale of the study, whether there is a scanned report (.pdf), scanned map (.tif) or GIS-ready feature class available.

The Alberta Vegetation Inventory (AVI) is a photo-based digital inventory developed to identify the type, extent and conditions of vegetation, where it exists and what changes are occurring. This dataset consolidates all available AVI into a single feature class.This dataset is produced for the Government of Alberta and is available to the general public.

The Primary Land and Vegetation Inventory (PLVI) is a photo-based digital inventory developed to identify the type, extent and conditions of vegetation in the forested and parkland areas of the province of Alberta. This includes portions of both the Green and White areas of the province. It will include areas of the province extending north from the extent of the Grassland Vegetation Inventory (GVI) and will include areas where the detail and expense of Alberta Vegetation Inventory (AVI) are not warranted, or time and resources are limiting constraints. Ecological site phase (ecosite phase) is the main level of classification used in PLVI. A polygon may be attributed with up to 3 ecological site phases, depending on complexity and extent. PLVI captures range site attributes only within the Central Parkland Natural Subregion. The most up to date ecological site phases can be found in the Plant Community Guides. Guides are broken into individual Natural Subregions. See the Cross Reference Section for additional information. 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.

The Central Parkland Vegetation Inventory (CPVI) Polygons is a dataset that was created to capture vegetation information for the Central (Aspen) Parkland Natural Subregion in Alberta. The Parkland Natural Region covers approximately 10% of the province and acts as a broad transitional area between the dry grasslands and the moist boreal forest. This region is characterized by productive soils, moisture levels and climatic conditions conducive to agriculture. The vegetation cover is a mosaic of aspen woodlands, wetlands, fescue grassland and riparian areas. The Central Parkland Natural Subregion is located in east-central Alberta. Other parkland subregions are located in the Foothills and the Peace River areas. The Central Parkland Vegetation Inventory (CPVI) Polygons is designed to be a vegetation / land use database for the Central Parkland Natural Subregion.

Mapa de Vegetación de Canarias. Propiedad del Gobierno de Canarias.

This dataset is produced for the Government of Alberta and is available to the general public. Please consult the Distribution Information of this metadata on how to acquire this dataset. The Grassland Vegetation Inventory (GVI) represents the Government of Alberta's comprehensive biophysical, anthropogenic and land-use inventory of the southernmost portion of the province's White Area. The compilation of the inventory commenced in 2006 in the southeast corner of the province using digital colour-infrared stereo photography. Data capture has proceeded north and west. The Grassland Vegetation Inventory is intended as an update to the Native Prairie Vegetation Inventory (NPVI) that was completed circa 1993. The Grassland Vegetation Inventory product is a more comprehensive and detailed geospatial representation of land cover that is intended to meet a multitude of business needs integral to land-use planning and management in Alberta. The Grassland Vegetation Inventory is a biophysical and land-use inventory rather than a purely vegetation inventory. It is comprised of ecological range sites based on soils information for areas of native vegetation and general land use for areas of non-native vegetation, namely those associated with agricultural, industrial, and residential developments. Landscape Polygons are the basic map units in the Grassland Vegetation Inventory digital product. These polygons represent interpretations of relatively uniform biophysical or anthropogenic areas. The characteristics of Landscape Polygons are captured as records in the Sites table. The Grassland Vegetation Inventory site type classification is captured under the Site Types column in the Sites table to a maximum of four site types per Landscape Polygon. The Grassland Vegetation Inventory site types and their associated information plus the data capture methodology are described in the Grassland Vegetation Inventory Specifications. Grassland Vegetation Inventory projects were initially funded under the Base Data Acquisition component of the Land-use Framework program, which represents the Alberta Government's comprehensive and integrated approach to land use planning and management. The primary funding agency is Alberta Environment and Protected Areas. The GVI data, index map, status map, views and specifications documents are available from Alberta Environment and Protected Areas, Government of Alberta.

The Cold Lake oil sands area - Township 56 to 69, Range 1 to 11, west of the 4th Meridian, falls within the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP). As part of Alberta's Land-use Framework, LARP was developed in 2012 to set the stage for robust growth, vibrant communities and a healthy environment within the region. One of its implementation objectives is to balance the economic development of oil sands and impacts on the ecosystem and environment. This is to be achieved through enhanced science-based monitoring for improved characterization of the environment and to collect the information necessary to understand cumulative effects. Landsat multispectral imagery for 2008 and 2009 and Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) classification data derived from 2009 were used to produce this dataset. The LULC changes include vegetation loss from anthropogenic disturbances, such as infrastructure related to oil and gas exploration, forestry and agriculture, and vegetation recovery from these disturbances. This digital data release contains the vegetation recovery data from 2008 to 2009, classified into 6 classes: 1 - shrub land, 2 - grassland, 3 - agricultural areas, 4 - coniferous forest, 5 - broadleaf forest and 6 - mixed forest.

The Cold Lake oil sands area, Township 56 to 69, Range 1 to 11, west of the 4th Meridian, falls within the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP). As part of Alberta's Land-use Framework, LARP was developed in 2012 to set the stage for robust growth, vibrant communities and a healthy environment within the region. One of its implementation objectives is to balance the economic development of oil sands and impacts on ecosystem and environment. This is to be achieved through enhanced science-based monitoring for improved characterization of the environment and collection of the information necessary to understand cumulative effects. This land classification raster dataset is derived from 2011 Landsat imagery. It contains 13 classes: 0 - unclassified, 1 - exposed land/cut blocks/harvested areas, 2 - water bodies, 3 - transitional bare surfaces, 5 - mixed developed areas, 6 - developed areas, 7- shoal, 8 - shrub land, 9 - grassland, 10 - agriculture areas, 11 - coniferous forest, 12 - broad leaf forest, 13 - mixed forest, and 14- fire scar.