Ontario Natural Cores and Wildlife Linkages Analysis

A legacy GIS-based landscape analysis identifies core natural areas and potential wildlife linkages across Ontario's Mixedwood Plains and part of the Ontario Shield ecozones. The analysis overlays digital layers for wetlands, forest cover, old growth, rare species, waterbodies, and protected areas, assigning conservation value scores. It was produced through a partnership between the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, with data compiled for the year 2002.

Use Cases

• Identify core natural areas by applying minimum size and point score per pixel thresholds to GIS layers.
• Model potential wildlife linkages by scoring landscape resistance based on surrounding features like forest cover and watercourses.
• Analyze spatial overlap of conservation features such as evaluated wetlands, rare species communities, and parks.
• Assess landscape conservation value by overlaying and scoring multiple data layers including old growth forest and ANSIs.

Strengths

• Analysis covers two major Ontario ecozones: the Mixedwood Plains and a portion of the Ontario Shield.
• Incorporates multiple validated data layers including evaluated wetlands, forest cover, and rare species.

Limitations

• Methodology is described as legacy and is no longer used for similar analyses, indicating potential obsolescence.
• Specific row counts, column details, and spatial resolution are unknown.
• Temporal coverage is limited to a single snapshot from 2002.

Provenance

Source

Partnership between the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources' Natural Heritage Information Centre.

Collection Method

Digital GIS layers were compiled, overlaid, and scored to identify cores and compute linkages based on landscape resistance.

Time Range

2002

Freshness

null

Geography

Mixedwood Plains ecozone and a portion of the Ontario Shield ecozone in Ontario, Canada.