Environmental Thematic Maps and Graphics:
Marine and coastal extent: ecosystems and substrate; southern British Columbia coast

The title of this map is “Marine and coastal extent: ecosystems and substrate; southern British Columbia coast.” This map provides a visual representation of the different ecosystems and substrate types along the southern coast of British Columbia.

On the page, there is one map and a legend to the upper right. The map displays the southern coast of British Columbia and includes bordering coastal regions of the state of Washington.

The legend includes four ecosystem categories: seagrass meadow (pink), kelp forest (red), salt marsh (blue), coral and sponge (purple). The legend presents four substrate types: hard (green), mixed (taupe), soft (light teal) and unmapped (light blue). The legend also has a boundary category: fine black lines indicate marine ecoregions.

The map shows that the southern British Columbia coast has a mixture of seagrass meadows, kelp forests and salt marshes, while patches of cold water coral and sponge are found in deeper waters. The coastal area of the Strait of Georgia has larger areas of seagrass meadow, while the Southern Shelf coastal area has more kelp forest. The substrate in the Strait of Georgia is mainly mixed, whilst the substrate on the Southern Shelf is mainly soft.

Sources:
McOwen, C., et al., 2017, "A global map of saltmarshes," Biodiversity Data Journal, Vol. 5: e11764, https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.5.e11764 and http://data.unepwcmc.org/datasets/43 (v.6) (accessed September 20, 2019);
B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resources Operations and Rural Development, 2019, Kelp Beds - Coastal Resource Information Management System (CRIMS), GeoBC, https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/kelp-beds-coastal-resource-information-management-system-crims (accessed April 4, 2019);
Freiwald, A., et al., 2017, "Global distribution of cold-water corals (version 5.0)," Fifth update to the dataset in Freiwald, et al., 2004, by UNEP-WCMC, in collaboration with A. Freiwald and J. Guinotte, Cambridge (UK): UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, http://data.unep-wcmc.org/datasets/3 (accessed June 3, 2019);
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2016, Oceans Act Marine Protected Areas, https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/a1e18963-25dd-4219-a33f-1a38c4971250 (accessed September 9, 2019);
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2017, Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures, https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/44769543-7a23-4991-a53f-c2cf7c7a946f (accessed September 9, 2019);
Personal communication with Brett Painter, Environment and Climate Change Canada, June 21, 2019;
Personal communication with Heike Lotz, Dalhousie University, June 21, 2019; Personal communication with John Cristiani and Mary O'Connor, University of British Columbia, June 14, 2019;
UNEP-WCMC and F. T. Short, 2018, Global distribution of seagrasses (version 6.0), Sixth update to the data layer used in Green and Short, 2003, Cambridge, (UK): UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, http://data.unep-wcmc.org/datasets/7 (accessed September 30, 2020);
Gregr, E. J., J. Lessard and J. Harper, 2013, "Pacific data from A spatial framework for representing nearshore ecosystems," Progress in Oceanography, Vol. 1153, p. 189-201;
Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, 1979, Benthic Marine Ecounits - Coastal Resource Information Management System (CRIMS), GeoBC, https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/dataset/benthic-marine-ecounits-coastal-resource-information-management-system-crims (accessed August 19, 2019).