Canada's Forested Areas Classification Map, 2017

A geospatial map layer classifying all land and inland water areas in Canada for 2017. The data was compiled from multiple provincial and territorial government sources for use in a national forest management story map. Treed areas, defined as having a canopy closure of 25% or greater and a tree height of 5 m or greater, are used as a proxy for forested areas.

Use Cases

• Modeling national land cover based on the classification of all land and inland water areas.
• Identifying potential forested regions using the derived treed area proxy layer.
• Supporting forestry management policy analysis with data aggregated from multiple provincial and federal sources.

Strengths

• Data is aggregated from 13 distinct provincial, territorial, and federal government sources, suggesting broad jurisdictional coverage.
• Treed area definition uses specific, quantifiable thresholds: canopy closure >=25% and tree height >=5m.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Alberta Agriculture and Forestry; British Columbia Ministry of Forests; Manitoba Sustainable Development; Natural Resources Canada; New Brunswick Department of Energy and Resource Development; Newfoundland & Labrador Department of Fisheries and Land Resources; Northwest Territories Department of Environment and Natural Resources; Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry; Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry; Prince Edward Island Department of Communities, Land & Environment; Québec Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs; Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment; Yukon Energy, Mines and Resources.

Collection Method

Derived using satellite data for the treed area proxy layer.

Time Range

2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 11:31:17.892448; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Canada