The Brier Island/Digby Neck area has been identified as an Ecologically and Biologically Significant Area (EBSA) by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and is one of four marine areas within the Bay of Fundy recognised by Parks Canada as of national significance for marine conservation planning. The area is representative of important outer Bay of Fundy features with significant marine mammal, bird, and benthic diversity including potentially important aggregations of sensitive benthic species such as horse mussel and sponge. Much of the information used for this recognition is now over 40 years old and should be re-validated using standardised georeferenced survey methods. As a first phase, a diver-based survey of the sublittoral habitats and associated species was conducted in August and September of 2017 for the Brier Island area. This report summarises the major sublittoral habitat types, species assemblages, and oceanographic conditions observed at 20 locations including Northwest and Southwest Ledges, Gull Rock, Peter’s Island, and Grand Passage. A total of 962 records were made of 178 taxa, consisting of 43 algae and 135 animals. Comparison with historical records largely confirmed the continued presence of unique habitats and species assemblages for which this area was initially recognised as an EBSA. Differences in species richness observed for cryptic and less known taxonomic groups such as sponges and bryozoans were attributable to changes in survey methods and knowledge. Based on these findings, additional surveys of inshore and offshore Brier Island using more quantitative methods developed for other Bay of Fundy EBSAs would further support regional MPA network planning and provide relative scales of species diversity and habitat coverage for this area.

Bay Scale Assessment of Nearshore Habitat Bras d'Or Lake - Chapel Island 2008 data is part of the publication Bay Scale Assessment of Nearshore Habitat Bras d'Or Lakes. A history of nearshore benthic surveys of Bras d’Or Lake from 2005 – 2011 is presented. Early work utilized drop camera and fixed mount sidescan. The next phase was one of towfish development, where camera and sidescan were placed on one platform with transponder-based positioning. From 2009 to 2011 the new towfish was used to ground truth an echosounder. The surveys were performed primarily in the northern half of the lake; from 10 m depth right into the shallows at less than 1 m. Different shorelines could be distinguished from others based upon the relative proportions of substrate types and macrophyte canopy. The vast majority of macrophytes occurred within the first 3 m of depth. This zone was dominated by a thin but consistent cover of eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) on almost all shores with a current or wave regime conducive to the growth of this plant. However, the eelgrass beds were frequently in poor shape and the negative impacts of commonly occurring water column turbidity, siltation, or possible localized eutrophication, are suspected. All survey data were placed into a Geographic Information System, and this document is a guide to that package. The Geographic Information System could be used to answer management questions such as the placement and character of habitat compensation projects, the selection of nearshore protected areas or as a baseline to determine long term changes. Vandermeulen, H. 2016. Video-sidescan and echosounder surveys of nearshore Bras d’Or Lake. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 3183: viii + 39 p. Cite this data as: Vandermeulen H. Bay Scale Assessment of Nearshore Habitat Bras d'Or Lake - Chapel Island 2008. Published May 2022. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S.

This gridded product visualizes 1960 - 2014 water body phosphate concentration (umol/l) in the North Sea domain, for each season (winter: December – February; spring: March – May; summer: June – August; autumn: September – November). It is produced as a Diva 4D analysis, version 4.6.9: a reference field of all seasonal data between 1960-2014 was used; results were logit transformed to avoid negative/underestimated values in the interpolated results; error threshold masks L1 (0.3) and L2 (0.5) are included as well as the unmasked field. Every step of the time dimension corresponds to a 10-year moving average for each season. The depth dimension allows visualizing the gridded field at various depths.

This visualization product displays plastic bags density per trawl. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Since the beginning of 2018, data of seafloor litter collected by international fish-trawl surveys have been gathered and processed in the EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database (MLDB). The harmonization of all the data has been the most challenging task considering the heterogeneity of the data sources, sampling protocols (OSPAR and MEDITS protocols) and reference lists used on a European scale. Moreover, within the same protocol, different gear types are deployed during fishing bottom trawl surveys. In cases where the wingspread and/or number of items were unknown, data could not be used because these fields are needed to calculate the density. Data collected before 2011 are affected by this filter. When the distance reported in the data was null, it was calculated from: - the ground speed and the haul duration using this formula: Distance (km) = Haul duration (h) * Ground speed (km/h); - the trawl coordinates if the ground speed and the haul duration were not filled in. The swept area is calculated from the wingspread (which depends on the fishing gear type) and the distance trawled: Swept area (km²) = Distance (km) * Wingspread (km) Densities have been calculated on each trawl and year using the following computation: Density of plastic bags (number of items per km²) = ∑Number of plastic bags related items / Swept area (km²) Percentiles 50, 75, 95 & 99 have been calculated taking into account data for all years. The list of selected items for this product is attached to this metadata. Information on data processing and calculation is detailed in the attached methodology document. Warning: the absence of data on the map doesn't necessarily mean that they don't exist, but that no information has been entered in the Marine Litter Database for this area.

A towfish containing sidescan and video hardware was used to map eelgrass in two shallow northern New Brunswick estuaries. The sidescan and video data were useful in documenting suspected impacts of oyster aquaculture gear and eutrophication on eelgrass. With one boat and a crew of three, the mapping was accomplished at a rate of almost 10 km2 per day. That rate far exceeds what could be accomplished by a SCUBA based survey with the same crew. Moreover, the towfish survey applied with a complementary echosounder survey is potentially a more cost effective mapping method than satellite based remote sensing. Cite this data as: Vandermeulen H. Data of: Bay Scale Assessment of Eelgrass Beds Using Sidescan and Video - Richibucto 2007. Published: October 2017. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/ca7af8ba-8810-4de5-aa91-473613b0b38d

To develop a database of high quality CTD observations at key locations in DFO’s Pacific Region, 22 stations have been selected for sampling as often as possible. Chief Scientists of DFO vessels with CTD equipment on board are asked to acquire a CTD profile at as many of these stations as possible. There may be circumstances that will prevent conducting a CTD cast but the intent is to collect as many as possible such that over time useful time series of CTD profiles will be available at these locations.

The Oceans Act (1997) commits Canada to maintaining biological diversity and productivity in the marine environment. A key component of this is to identify areas that are considered ecologically or biologically significant. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Science has developed guidance on the identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) (DFO 2004) and has endorsed the scientific criteria of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for identifying ecologically or biologically significant marine areas as defined in Annex I of Decision IX/20 of its 9th Conference of Parties. These criteria were applied to the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) Shelves Bioregion in two separate data-driven processes. The first process focused on the area north of the Placentia Bay-Grand Banks (PBGB) Large Ocean Management Area (LOMA) (DFO 2013). The second process focused on the PBGB area (DFO 2019), where EBSAs had previously been identified using a more Delphic approach (Templeman 2007). In both cases, an EBSA Steering Committee, comprised of experts in oceanography, ecosystem structure and function, taxa-specific life histories and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) guided the process by advising or aiding in the identification, collection, processing and analysis of data layers, as well as participating in the final selection of candidate EBSAs (Wells et al. 2017, Ollerhead et al. 2017, Wells et al. 2019). All information was compiled in a GIS and a hierarchical approach was used to review individual data layers and groupings of data layers. Peer review meetings were held for both processes, during which candidate EBSAs were reviewed and the final EBSAs were agreed upon and delineated. In the northern study area, a total of fifteen EBSAs were identified and described; three of these areas are primarily coastal areas; seven are in offshore areas; four EBSAs straddle coastal and offshore areas; and one is a transitory EBSA that follows the southern extent of pack ice. In the PBGB study area, fourteen EBSAs were identified in two different categories: seven based on coastal data and seven based on offshore data. In comparing the new PBGB EBSAs to those identified in 2007, nine of them overlap spatially and are based on similar features; however, there were some variations in the boundaries. Two of the EBSAs that were identified in 2007 were no longer considered EBSAs in 2017, but portions of both of these areas were captured in part by other EBSAs. Five new EBSAs were identified in areas not previously considered. References: DFO, 2004. Identification of Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Ecosystem Status Rep. 2004/006. DFO. 2013. Identification of additional Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) within the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves Bioregion. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Sci. Advis. Rep. 2013/048. DFO. 2019. Re-evaluation of the Placentia Bay-Grand Banks Area to Identify Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas . DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Sci. Advis. Rep. 2019/040. Ollerhead, L.M.N., Gullage, M., Trip, N., and Wells, N. 2017. Development of Spatially Referenced Data Layers for Use in the Identification and Delineation of Candidate Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas in the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves Bioregion. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Res. Doc. 2017/036. v + 38 p Templeman, N.D. 2007. Placentia Bay-Grand Banks Large Ocean Management Area Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas. Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Res. Doc. 2007/052: iii + 15 p. Wells, N.J., Stenson, G.B., Pepin, P., and Koen-Alonso, M. 2017. Identification and Descriptions of Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas in the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves Bioregion. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Res. Doc. 2017/013. v + 87 p. Wells, N., K. Tucker, K. Allard, M. Warren, S. Olson, L. Gullage, C. Pretty, V. Sutton-Pande and K. Clarke. 2019. Re-evaluation of the Placentia Bay-Grand Banks Area of the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves Bioregion to Identify and Describe Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas. DFO Can. Sci. Advis. Sec. Res. Doc. 2019/049. viii + 138 p.

Trends in abundance or diversity of sea ice biota Focal Ecosystem Components across each Arctic Marine Area. STATE OF THE ARCTIC MARINE BIODIVERSITY REPORT - Chapter 4 - Page 177 - Figure 4.1

The Atlantic dataset is part of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Shoreline Classification and Pre-Spill database. Shoreline classification data has been developed for use by the Environmental Emergencies Program of Environment and Climate Change Canada for environmental protection purposes. Marine and estuarine shorelines are classified according to the character (substrate and form) of the upper intertidal (foreshore) or upper swash zone (Sergy, 2008). This is the area where oil from a spill usually becomes stranded and where treatment or cleanup activities take place. The basic parameter that defines the shoreline type is the material that is present in the intertidal zone. The presence or absence of sediments is a key factor in determining whether oil is stranded on the surface of a substrate or can penetrate and/or be buried. This dataset contains thousands of linear shoreline segments ranging in length from 200 m and 2 km long. The entities represent the location of the segments and their geomorphological description. There exist further fields in the attribute table for this dataset. We are currently working on standardizing our shoreline segmentation datasets and the updated data will soon be uploaded to the catalog. Sergy, G. (2008). The Shoreline Classification Scheme for SCAT and Oil Spill Response in Canada. Proceedings of the 31stArctic and Marine Oil Spill Program Technical Seminar.Environment Canada, Ottawa, ON, Pp. 811-819.