Census of Environment: Spatial information products
Land Cover Register: Data product specifications
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1 Overview
1.1 Title
Land Cover Register: Data product specifications
1.2 Reference date
2025-05-13
1.3 Responsible party
Census of Environment
Environment Accounts and Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
150 Tunney's Pasture Driveway
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0T6
Email: statcan.environ-environ.statcan@statcan.gc.ca
1.4 Language
eng – English
fra – French
1.5 Terms and definitions
Land cover: The observed (bio)physical cover on the Earth’s surface.Note
Land use: The arrangements people undertake, as well as their activities and inputs, in relation to a certain land cover type to produce, change or maintain it.Note
1.6 Abbreviations and acronyms
AAFC
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
CCMEO
Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation
CFS
Canadian Forest Service
CoE
Census of Environment
EA
Ecosystem Accounting
GeoTIFF
Geographic Tagged Image File Format
ISO
International Organization for Standardization
LCC
2020 Land Cover of Canada
LCR
Land cover register
LCV2
2020 Land Cover version 2
NRCan
Natural Resources Canada
SDLU
2020 Semi-decadal Land Use Time Series
SEEA
System of Environmental Economic Accounting
1.7 Informal description of the data product
This product, referred to as the land cover register (LCR), is a raster dataset that maps Canada’s terrestrial and freshwater extent using an 11-class classification system. The main purpose of the dataset is to help identify land cover and land use assets to support ecosystem accounting.
This product represents land cover circa 2020 and has a 30-metre spatial resolution. It was created through the integration of multiple land cover and land use datasets.
The LCR was created to serve four main purposes within Statistics Canada’s Census of Environment (CoE) program:
- to serve as an accurate, spatially explicit, pixel-based representation of land cover assetsNote
- to support spatial analysis for measuring ecosystem condition, characteristics (such as proximity, fragmentation and homogeneity) and services
- to serve as a base for estimating land cover extent through design-based area estimation
- to serve as a base and input for building spatially explicit, object-based representations of ecosystem assets and maps.
This dataset is released as part of a suite of products associated with the CoE. The CoE organizes data on Canada’s natural environment based on the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) international statistical standard, which includes the SEEA Central Framework and the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (EA) module. The SEEA EA takes a spatial approach to accounting for ecosystems and natural capital. Land cover is relevant under the land accounts of the SEEA Central Framework and the extent accounts of the SEEA EA.
This dataset will be updated on an occasional basis.
2 Specification scope
In these specifications, only one scope is used.
2.1 Scope Identification
Main
2.2 Level
Dataset
2.3 Level name
Main scope of the LCR dataset
2.4 Level description
Gridded dataset of land cover for all terrestrial and freshwater areas of Canada
2.5 Extent
2.5.1 Description
This product is a two-dimensional land cover dataset (no elevation) covering Canada’s terrestrial and freshwater extent with a temporal extent circa 2020.
2.5.2 Vertical extent
The data are two-dimensional. There is no elevation (z) associated with the data.
2.5.3 Horizontal extent
The dataset covers all areas of Canada’s terrestrial and freshwater extent.
| Degrees | |
|---|---|
| Source: Statistics Canada, Environment Accounts and Statistics Division. | |
| West bounding longitude | -141 |
| East bounding longitude | -52 |
| South bounding latitude | 41 |
| North bounding latitude | 84 |
Description for Map 1
The title of this figure is “Extent of the land cover register.” It provides a visual representation of the land cover register.
The figure is a map showing the spatial distribution of land cover types in Canada. There is a legend in the top right corner and a scale bar in the bottom left corner.
Each pixel in the map is represented by one of eleven land cover classes: built-up and artificial surface, cropland, inland water body, treed (non-wetland), treed wetland, treed area disturbance, grassland and shrubland, wetland (non-treed), sparsely vegetated land, barren land or permanent snow and ice.
In major urban areas, such as Toronto, Montréal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, built-up and artificial surfaces are visible in the map as the main land cover type. In the Prairie ecozone and much of the Mixedwood Plains, cropland is the dominant land cover type. A wide swath of the country from the Atlantic provinces in the southeast to British Columbia and Yukon in the west is distinguished by having treed (non-wetland), treed area disturbance and treed wetland as the dominant land cover types. South of Hudson Bay and west of James Bay, wetlands are present in a large concentration. In much of northern Canada above the tree line, grassland and shrubland is the dominant land cover class, while in the far northern islands of the Arctic Archipelago, sparsely vegetated land, barren land and permanent snow and ice are dominant.
Source: Statistics Canada, Environment Accounts and Statistics Division.
| Symbol | Description |
|---|---|
| Burgundy | Built-up and artificial surface |
| Pink | Cropland |
| Light blue | Inland water body |
| Dark green | Treed (non-wetland) |
| Dark purple | Treed wetland |
| Medium green | Treed area disturbance |
| Lime green | Grassland and shrubland |
| Purplish pink | Wetland (non-treed) |
| Pale greenish yellow | Sparsely vegetated land |
| Grey | Barren land |
| White | Permanent snow and ice |
2.5.4 Temporal extent
The information in the product represents land cover circa 2020. The dataset was created based on the integration of multiple spatial datasets, most of which represent the year 2020; however, some represent a point in time just prior to or just after 2020. Table 6 in Section 7.1 lists the datasets used to create the LCR and the year of each.
2.6 Coverage
The information applies to all coverages.
3 Data product identification
| Title | Land cover register |
|---|---|
| Source: Statistics Canada, Environment Accounts and Statistics Division. | |
| Alternate title | LCR_RCT_2020 |
| Abstract | Land cover for Canada’s terrestrial and freshwater extent. Each 30 metre x 30 metre pixel is assigned one of eleven land cover classes. |
| Purpose | This product provides users with geographic and thematic data on the land cover of Canada by class. It was produced in the context of developing land cover, land use and ecosystem extent data for ecosystem accounts following the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) Central Framework and SEEA Ecosystem Accounting. |
| Topic category | Environment, imageryBaseMapsEarthCover |
| Spatial representation type | Grid |
| Spatial resolution | 30 metres |
| Geographic description | Authority: International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ISO 3166-1:1997 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes. Reference date of the ISO 3166-1 standard: 1997-10-01 Data type: Publication Code: CA – Canada Extent type code: Inclusion |
| Specification scope | Main |
4 Data content and structure
4.1 Description
This product is a raster dataset of land cover for Canada’s terrestrial and freshwater extent, based on an 11-class classification system.
4.2 Feature information
Not applicable
4.3 Coverage information
4.3.1 Description
Name: Land cover register
Technical description: The product represents land cover of Canada circa 2020 at 30-metre resolution. It includes 11 land cover classes. This product was created by integrating multiple spatial datasets.
Type of coverage content: Thematic classification
4.3.2 Coverage type
Discrete quadrilateral grid coverage
4.3.3 Specification
4.3.3.1 Domain extent
Refer to section 2.5 of this document.
4.3.3.2 Range type
Name: Land cover register
Value data type: Integer (0-255)
| Class name | Class description | Class code |
|---|---|---|
|
||
| Built-up and artificial surface | Any area with a predominantly artificial surface, including roads and buildings. Vegetated areas associated with these areas, such as parks (including treed urban parks), lawns and golf courses, are also included. This class also includes industrial areas, resource extraction areas, infrastructure and cleared land that is not used for agriculture or forestry. | 1 |
| Cropland | Land used for growing annual and perennial crops. This class includes pasture (other than natural grasslands used for pasture) and herbaceous crops used for hay. Table 3 Note 1 | 2 |
| Inland water body | Any area covered for most of the year by inland water bodies. In some cases, the water can be frozen for part of the year (less than 10 months). Riverbeds that may only have water flow during the high-water season (particularly in mountainous northern regions) are also included in this class. | 3 |
| Treed (non-wetland) | Land covered by trees with a canopy cover over 10% and a minimum height of five metres. In northern and mountainous regions, the tree height may be reduced to two to three metres. | 4 |
| Treed wetland | Wetland covered by trees with a canopy cover over 10% and a minimum height of five metres. In northern and mountainous regions, the tree height may be reduced to two to three metres. | 5 |
| Treed area disturbance | Treed areas that have experienced forest harvest or forest fire from 1990 to 2020. | 6 |
| Grassland and shrubland | Land dominated by natural herbaceous plants or shrubs with a cover of 20% or more. Trees can be present if their cover is less than 10%. In the Prairie regions, unimproved pasture is included in this class. | 7 |
| Wetland (non-treed) | Wetland with herbaceous or shrub vegetation that is at or above the surface of the water. | 8 |
| Sparsely vegetated land | Areas dominated by natural abiotic surfaces (bare soil, sand, rocks, etc.) where natural vegetation cover (which generally grows in clumps) is between 2% and 20%. | 9 |
| Barren land | Areas dominated by natural abiotic surfaces (bare soil, sand, rocks, etc.) where the natural vegetation is absent or almost absent (covering less than 2%). | 10 |
| Permanent snow and ice | Areas persistently covered by snow or glaciers. | 11 |
4.3.3.3 Common point rule
Not applicable
4.4 Reference to the specification scope
Main
5 Reference systems
5.1 Spatial reference system
| Projected coordinate system | NAD83_Statistics_Canada_Ecosystem_Register_Albers |
|---|---|
| Source: Statistics Canada, Environment Accounts and Statistics Division. | |
| Geographic coordinate system | GCS_North_American_1983 |
| Datum | D_North_American_1983 |
| Spheroid | GRS_1980 |
| Semimajor axis | 6378137.0 |
| Inverse flattening | 298.257222101 |
| Prime meridian | Greenwich (0.0) |
| Angular unit | Degree (0.0174532925199433) |
| Projection | Albers |
| False easting | 6200000.0 |
| False northing | 3000000.0 |
| Central meridian | -91.8666666666667 |
| Standard parallel 1 | 49.0 |
| Standard parallel 2 | 90.0 |
| Latitude of origin | 63.390675 |
| Linear unit | Metres (1.0) |
5.2 Linear reference system
Not applicable
5.3 Temporal reference system
Gregorian calendar
5.4 Reference to specification scope
Main
6 Data quality
6.1 Completeness
This product covers the entirety of Canada’s terrestrial and freshwater extent at a 30-metre resolution.
6.1.1 Commission
Since boundaries between freshwater, intertidal and coastal waters are difficult to define, dynamic and transitional in nature, some areas along the coastline identified in the LCR as inland water may be coastal or marine waters. Additionally, where water courses drain into coastal waters, portions that could be considered coastal or marine may be classified as inland water in the LCR.
6.1.2 Omission
Boundaries between freshwater, intertidal and coastal waters are difficult to define, dynamic and transitional in nature. Where water courses drain into coastal waters, portions that could be considered freshwater may be omitted from the inland water class of the LCR.
6.2 Logical consistency
6.2.1 Conceptual consistency
This dataset was created primarily for ecosystem accounting and analysis. It is meant to represent the best spatially explicit estimates of land cover assets, for spatial analysis in measuring ecosystem condition and services, and for use as an input for generating more accurate land cover area estimates using a design-based approach. The dataset is not primarily intended for mapping and visualization. For this reason, trade-offs were made in integrating the best available data on a large regional level, resulting in some spatial inconsistencies in the data between classes, particularly in classes that are more difficult to map or identify, such as wetlands in northern areas.
This dataset is meant for use at the national or large regional scale and is not recommended as a primary source in local or finer-resolution analysis or reporting. Additionally, the dataset is not designed for or intended to support change detection. While new versions of the LCR may be published in the future, it is not recommended to infer land cover change by simply comparing products, since perceived changes could be the result of differences in the datasets used as inputs. These can include differences in class definitions between datasets, temporal variability and misclassification, as opposed to real land cover change.
6.2.2 Domain consistency
Verification and validation procedures limited the presence of land cover classes occurring in unexpected locations.
6.2.3 Format consistency
The use of well-established commercial software to generate distribution formats ensures format consistency for product distribution.
6.2.4 Topological consistency
The product was aligned to the CoE 30-metre grid, which uses the spatial reference system described in Section 5.1 and has a point of origin at the bottom left corner of (3,000,000 m E, 0 m).
6.3 Positional accuracy
Unknown. Reprojection and alignment of the various datasets that were integrated to create the LCR may have introduced positional error.
6.4 Temporal accuracy
While most of the datasets integrated in this product represent the year 2020, some datasets represent time periods just prior to or just after this year. It is recommended that users consider this product as approximately representative of the year 2020.
6.5 Thematic accuracy
Table 5 displays the level of agreement by land cover type at the national level. It is expressed in the form of the F-score, which quantifies how well the LCR maps the actual land cover type. The F-score combines results of the user’s and producer’s accuracies. The overall weighted F-score is 74.9%. The degree of agreement is not uniform across land cover classes. Four land cover classes have a high level of agreement (greater than 80%), covering 48.3% of the country’s inland area. They are cropland, inland water body, treed (including treed wetlands) and permanent snow and ice. The remaining classes are between 60.7% and 76.8% agreement, aside from sparsely vegetated land which has an agreement of 43.4%.
| Land cover class | Area | Percentage of total land | F-Score | User's accuracy | Producer's accuracy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| km2 | percent | ||||
| Note: Since each area estimate has been rounded to the nearest square kilometre, totals will be close but not always equal to the sum of their components.
Source: Statistics Canada, Environment Accounts and Statistics Division. |
|||||
| Built-up and artificial surface | 67,634 | 0.7 | 60.7 | 64.5 | 57.5 |
| Cropland | 427,540 | 4.3 | 82.6 | 73.1 | 95.0 |
| Inland water body | 1,257,268 | 12.6 | 87.2 | 88.5 | 85.9 |
| Treed (including treed wetlands) | 2,953,811 | 29.6 | 82.7 | 79.1 | 87.0 |
| Treed area disturbance | 725,223 | 7.3 | 76.8 | 76.7 | 77.4 |
| Grassland and shrubland | 1,903,336 | 19.1 | 65.3 | 67.4 | 64.2 |
| Wetland (non-treed) | 1,270,536 | 12.7 | 67.4 | 72.2 | 63.5 |
| Sparsely vegetated land | 545,920 | 5.5 | 43.4 | 39.9 | 47.6 |
| Barren land | 638,862 | 6.4 | 73.3 | 77.8 | 71.2 |
| Permanent snow and ice | 178,111 | 1.8 | 94.6 | 92.5 | 96.8 |
| Overall | 9,968,242 | 100.0 | 74.9 | 74.6 | 76.0 |
While thematic misclassifications can occur in all classes, certain class-specific limitations should be noted. The treed area disturbance class may include disturbances resulting from phenomena other than fire and harvest, such as insect infestation and wind damage. Further, partial harvesting (e.g., through selective logging) may not be captured in the disturbance data.
Wetlands are underrepresented in some regions. For example, in the Prairie region, prairie potholes are wetlands that are often small and/or narrow in shape. They collectively make up a large proportion of the land base but are likely to be misclassified in this data product because of their size in relation to the spatial resolution of the available land cover data and the influences of temporal variability.
Since treed wetlands are difficult to differentiate from treed uplands using image interpretation, the accuracy of the treed wetland class was not assessed. Users are advised to exercise caution when using this class.
Linear features, such as roads, railways and powerlines, were integrated into the LCR. Although these features are generally narrower than the 30-metre resolution of the product and are often not the dominant land cover in a pixel, they were included since they can have significant impacts on ecosystems.
Users should exercise caution when using the LCR in coastal areas. Misclassifications are more common in dynamic and transitional areas along the coast because of factors such as shifting coastlines, fluctuating water levels, areas where freshwater and saltwater mix and other hydrological factors. Misalignment of different spatial data products may also lead to classification errors.
7 Data capture
7.1 Description
Over recent decades, advances in the field of Earth observation and mapping, combined with those in computing power and data storage, have enabled the production of medium-resolution land cover maps with coverage of large areas. Various government bodies, including Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan’s) Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO), the Canadian Forest Service (CFS), and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), have produced high-quality multi-class and class-specific land cover maps. Each of these maps was produced for a certain purpose, using a classification system and spatial coverage to suit that need.
An assessment of available land cover maps revealed that no single map fully met the needs of ecosystem accounting: accurate, nationally consistent, up to date, and with the required classes to estimate land cover and (eventually) ecosystem assets. Therefore, Statistics Canada produced the LCR to take advantage of the best available land cover products in Canada by integrating multiple spatial datasets.
The multi-class land cover datasets used as the base for this integration process were the 2020 Semi-decadal Land Use Time Series produced by AAFC (AAFC, 2023), the 2020 Land Cover of Canada produced by NRCan’s CCMEO (NRCan, Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, 2024) and the 2020 Land Cover version 2 produced by the CFS (Hermosilla et al., 2016). The following acronyms are used for these datasets for the remainder of this document: AAFC SDLU (2020 Semi-decadal Land Use Time Series), CCMEO LCC (2020 Land Cover of Canada) and CFS LCV2 (2020 Land Cover version 2).
The three multi-class land cover datasets vary in terms of their purpose and spatial coverage. The AAFC SDLU covers all areas south of 60°N latitude, the CCMEO LCC covers all of Canada and the CFS LCV2 covers the forested ecosystems of Canada.
The three main datasets were supplemented with other data products to take advantage of each of their strengths on a region-by-region and class-by-class basis, while also preserving national comparability as much as possible. All datasets that were used had national or large regional coverage. While more accurate regional data often exist at the provincial and territorial level or below, these datasets were not considered in order to maintain as much national comparability as possible. Table 6 lists all datasets used in the LCR and indicates whether they were integrated in the register or used as ancillary data to support decision making.
More details on how the datasets were used can be found in Land Cover Register: Documentation.
| Dataset name | Dataset acronym | Data producer | Mapped year | Data format | Spatial resolution or scale | Integrated or ancillary | Link if publicly available |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||
| Semi-decadal Land Use Time Series | AAFC SDLU | Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada | 2020 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | AAFC Land Use - Open Government Portal |
| Land Cover of Canada | CCMEO LCC | Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, Natural Resources Canada (North American Land Change Monitoring System collaboration) | 2020 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | 2020 Land Cover of Canada - Open Government Portal |
| National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada, Land Cover version 2 | CFS LCV2 | Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada | 2019 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada |
| Northern Anthropogenic Disturbance Mapping | NORDIS | Environment and Climate Change Canada | 2020 | Vector | 1:60,000 | Integrated | ... not applicable |
| Canada Landsat Burned Severity product 1985-2020 Table 6 Note 1 | CanLaBS | Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada | 1985 to 2020 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | Canada Landsat Burned Severity product 1985-2015 (CanLaBS) - Open Government Portal |
| National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada, Forest Harvest | ... not applicable | Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada | 1985 to 2020 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada |
| National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada, Forest Fires | ... not applicable | Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada | 1985 to 2020 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada |
| Canadian Wetland Inventory Map version 3 | CWIM3 | Natural Resources Canada | 2017 to 2020 | Raster | 10 m | Integrated | The Third Generation of Pan-Canadian Wetland Map at 10 m Resolution Using Multisource Earth Observation Data on Cloud Computing Platform | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore |
| Spatialized CAnadian National Forest Inventory, version 1.1 | SCANFI | Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada | 2020 | Raster | 30 m | Ancillary | SCANFI: the Spatialized CAnadian National Forest Inventory data product - Open Government Portal |
| Prairie Ecozone Grasslands | ... not applicable | Environment and Climate Change Canada | 2020 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | ... not applicable |
| Annual Crop Inventory | ACI | Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada | 2019 to 2023 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | Annual Crop Inventory - Open Government Portal |
| CanVec Snow and Ice | ... not applicable | Natural Resources Canada | ... not applicable | Vector | 1:50,000 | Integrated | Topographic Data of Canada - CanVec Series - Open Government Portal |
| CanVec Wetlands | ... not applicable | Natural Resources Canada | ... not applicable | Vector | 1:50,000 | Integrated | Topographic Data of Canada - CanVec Series - Open Government Portal |
| Global Land Cover and Land Use | GLCLU | University of Maryland | 2019 | Raster | 30 m | Integrated | Global land cover and land use 2019 | GLAD |
| Road Network File | ... not applicable | Statistics Canada | 2021 | Vector | ... not applicable | Integrated | Road network files |
| National Road Network | ... not applicable | Natural Resources Canada | 2014 | Vector | 1:50,000 | Integrated | National Road Network - NRN - GeoBase Series - Open Government Portal |
| National Railway Network | ... not applicable | Natural Resources Canada | 2017 | Vector | 1:50,000 | Integrated | National Railway Network - NRWN - GeoBase Series - Open Government Portal |
| National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada, FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations] Forest | ... not applicable | Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada | 2019 | Raster | 30 m | Ancillary | National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada |
| National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada, Forest Age 2019 | ... not applicable | Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada | 2019 | Raster | 30 m | Ancillary | National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System for Canada |
| Distribution of peatlands in Canada using National Forest Inventory forest structure and ancillary land cover data | ... not applicable | Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada | 2011 | Raster | 250 m | Ancillary | Distribution of peatlands in Canada using National Forest Inventory forest structure and ancillary land cover data (2011) - Open Government Portal |
| Census of Agriculture | ... not applicable | Statistics Canada | 2021 | Vector | Census division | Ancillary | Census of Agriculture: Data Linked to Geographic Boundaries - Open Government Portal |
| CanVec Waterbodies | ... not applicable | Natural Resources Canada | ... not applicable | Vector | 1:50,000 | Ancillary | Lakes, Rivers and Glaciers in Canada - CanVec Series - Hydrographic Features - Open Government Portal |
| CanVec Resources Management Features | ... not applicable | Natural Resources Canada | ... not applicable | Vector | 1:50,000 | Ancillary | Mines, Energy and Communication Networks in Canada - CanVec Series - Resources Management Features - Open Government Portal |
| Dynamic Surface Water Maps of Canada | ... not applicable | Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, Natural Resources Canada | 1984 to 2019 | Raster | 30 m | Ancillary | Dynamic Surface Water Maps of Canada from 1984-2023 Landsat Satellite Imagery - Open Government Portal |
| World Imagery | ... not applicable | Esri | Varies | Raster | Varies | Ancillary | ... not applicable |
| Imagery | ... not applicable | Google Earth Pro | Varies | Raster | Varies | Ancillary | ... not applicable |
| Sentinel-2 and Landsat False Colour Image Composites | ... not applicable | Esri web services | 1989 to 2024 | Raster | 10 to 30 m | Ancillary | ... not applicable |
| Normalized Difference Vegetation Index time series from moderate resolution satellite imagery | ... not applicable | NASA and European Spatial Agency | 1989 to 2024 | Raster | 10 to 30 m | Ancillary | ... not applicable |
| Circumpolar Arctic Region Tree Line | ... not applicable | Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map Project | 2003 | Vector | 1:4,000,000 | Ancillary | Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation, Geobotanical, Physiographic Maps, 1982-2003, https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1323 |
| 2021 Census - Boundary files (provinces and territories) | ... not applicable | Statistics Canada | 2021 | Vector | Varies depending on source data | Ancillary | 2021 Census Boundary files |
| Canada / United States of America Boundary | ... not applicable | International Boundary Commission | 2018 | Vector | Not indicated | Ancillary | Digital boundary | International Boundary Commission |
7.2 Reference to the specification scope
Main
8 Data maintenance
8.1 Description
The dataset is updated on an occasional basis.
8.2 Reference to the specification scope
Main
9 Portrayal
The portrayal of the Land Cover Register in Map 1 is defined by a pre-established colour scheme chosen to optimize the visual representation of the land cover classes. The raster dataset consists of 11 discrete classes, each represented by a specific RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colour value. A colormap has been provided with the dataset, specifying the class codes and their associated RGB values. This colormap allows users to reproduce the original graphic representation accurately, ensuring visual consistency when displaying or analyzing the data. The suggested colour scheme is presented in table 7.
| Class name | Class code | Colour code (Red, Green, Blue [RGB]) |
|---|---|---|
| Source: Statistics Canada, Environment Accounts and Statistics Division. | ||
| Built-up and artificial surface | 1 | 174, 38, 121 |
| Cropland | 2 | 229, 122, 138 |
| Inland water body | 3 | 190, 232, 255 |
| Treed (non-wetland) | 4 | 38, 115, 0 |
| Treed wetland | 5 | 129, 93, 198 |
| Treed area disturbance | 6 | 56, 168, 0 |
| Grassland and shrubland | 7 | 155, 255, 155 |
| Wetland (non-treed) | 8 | 217, 160, 215 |
| Sparsely vegetated land | 9 | 233, 255, 190 |
| Barren land | 10 | 156, 156, 156 |
| Permanent snow and ice | 11 | 255, 255, 255 |
10 Data product delivery
10.1 Delivery format information
Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF)
10.1.1 Format name
GeoTIFF
10.1.2 Version
GeoTIFF 6.0
10.1.3 Specification
GeoTIFF is a format extension for storing georeference and geocoding information in a TIFF 6.0 compliant raster file by tying a raster image to a known model space or map projection.
10.1.4 File structure
The dataset is delivered as a zipped folder containing the main GeoTIFF file (LCR_RCT_2020.tif) and auxiliary files. The auxiliary files must be stored in the same directory as the main file and include:
- .tfw: ASCII text file describing the location (expressed in projection coordinates), scale and orientation of the raster file.
- .aux.xml: Additional information that cannot be stored in the raster file itself.
- .clr: A space-delimited text file that defines the default mapped colour for each pixel value expressed with red, green and blue channel values ranging from 0 to 255.
- .ovr: Pyramid layers enabling fast display of the raster dataset at all scales.
- .vat.dbf: A dBase file with "VALUE" and "COUNT" fields containing all the unique values in the raster file and their associated frequency.
- .vat.cpg: Specifies the codepage for identifying the character set to be used.
10.1.5 Language
No linguistic content
10.1.6 Character Set
utf-8
10.2 Delivery medium information for Static Files
10.2.1 Units of delivery
The dataset is presented as a GeoTIFF.
Land cover register: LCR_RCT_2020.tif
10.2.2 Transfer size
The compressed (.zip) file size is approximately 1.86 GB. Once unzipped, the size of the entire set of files is approximately 2.12 GB.
10.2.3 Medium name
File transfer
Open Government of Canada website
10.2.4 Other delivery information
Information regarding the use of the data is defined in the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
10.3 Reference to specification scope
Main
11 Additional information
Statistics Canada also produces tabular estimates of land cover areas by ecoprovince, sub-drainage area and drainage region as part of the CoE. These estimates are generated through design-based area estimation and will differ from those obtained by using the land cover register to generate area estimates. A link to the tabular estimates and methods can be found on the Physical asset accounts page of the Methodological Guide: Canadian System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.
12 Metadata
Additional details on the purpose, methodology and limitations of this product can be found in Land Cover Register: Documentation.
12.1 Reference to specification scope
Main
- Date modified: