Growing Degree Days (GDDs) are used to estimate the growth and development of plants and insects during the growing season. Insect and plant development are very dependent on temperature and the daily accumulation of heat. The amount of heat required to move a plant or pest to the next development stage remains constant from year to year. However, the actual amount of time (days) can vary considerably from year to year because of weather conditions. Base temperatures are a point below which development does not occur for the organism in question. Base 10 temperatures are commonly used for grasshoppers and beans. These values are calculated across Canada in 10x10 km cells.

In 2012, 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 (except Newfoundland), in support of a national crop inventory. A Decision Tree (DT) based methodology was applied using optical (DMC, SPOT) 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 our regional AAFC colleagues.

The National Ecological Framework for Canada's "Soil Development by Ecodistrict” dataset contains tables that provide soil development information for components within the ecodistrict framework polygon. It provides soil development codes and their English and French-language descriptions as well as the percentage of the polygon that the component occupies. The soil development descriptions are based on the second edition of the Canadian System of Soil Classification (Agriculture Canada Expert Committee on Soil Survey, 1987).

The Prince Edward Island Detailed Soil Survey is a dataset series describing the spatial distribution of soils and associated landscapes in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. Soil landscape information compiled and published over the previous several decades provided the basis for the development of this relational database. The graphic soil landscape polygons are intended to be represented at a scale of 1:75,000. The associated soil landscape information and soil characteristics are described in a standard format in the Component (CMP), Soil Name File (SNF) and Soil Layer File (SLF) tables.

The National Ecological Framework for Canada's "Land and Water Area by Province/Territory and Ecoregion” dataset provides land and water area values by province or territory for the Ecoregion framework polygon, in hectares. It includes codes and their English and French descriptions for a polygon’s province or territory, total area, land-only area and large water body area.

Last Spring Frost (0 °C) is defined as the average day, during the first half of the year, of the last occurrence of a minimum temperature at or below 0 °C. These values are calculated across Canada in 10x10 km cells.

The term "Palmer Drought Index" has been used collectively to represent multiple indices. This index is simply a water balance model which analyzes precipitation and temperature, and used as a tool to measure meteorological and hydrological drought across space and time. All versions of the index uses the Versatile Soil Moisture Budget to model the movement of water within the system, and a daily Priestly-Taylor model to estimate evapotranspiration. The Palmer Drought Index (PDI) uses monthly temperature and precipitation data to calculate a simple soil water balance. The index is a relative measure that typically ranges from -4 (extremely dry) to +4 (extremely wet) and represents how soil moisture availability differs from that expected for a given place and time of year. The PDI includes a "memory" component that considers past conditions and persistence of soil moisture surplus or deficit. The Modified Palmer Drought Index (PMDI) is obtained from the sum of the wet and dry terms weighted by probability values. The PMDI has the same value as the PDI during established dry or wet spells but can be different during transition periods.

The Blended Index (BI) is a model which employs multiple potential indicators of drought and excess moisture, such as the Palmer drought index, rolling precipitation amounts and soil moisture, and combines them into a weighted, normalized value between 0 and 100. The inputs and weights used in this model are subject to change periodically as it is optimized to best represent extent, duration and severity of impactful weather conditions. The blended index is deployed as two variations; short term (st) focusing on 1 to 3 months, and long term (lt) focusing on 6 months to 5 years.

The “Soil Landscapes of Canada (SLC) Version 2.2” dataset series provides a set of geo-referenced soil areas (polygons) that are linked to attribute data found in the associated Component Table (CMP), Landscape Table (LAT), Carbon Layer Table (CLYR), and Dom/Sub File (DOM_SUB). Together, these datasets describe the spatial distribution of soils and associated landscapes for Canada.

Water demand is usually measured by evapotranspiration: the amount of water that would be evaporated and transpired by plants. Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) is the demand or maximum amount of evaporation that would occur if sufficient water were available (from precipitation and soil moisture). Priestly-Taylor equations were used to estimate daily PET. These values are calculated across Canada using historical climate station data from ECCC with the Versatile Soil Moisture Budget model (Baier and Robertson, 1996 and Baier et al., 2000).