Canadian Forest Disturbance History from 1965 to 1984 at 30-Meter Resolution

A 30-meter resolution raster product mapping wildfire, harvest, and insect outbreak disturbances in Canadian forests from 1965 to 1984. The data was generated by Natural Resources Canada using multi-layer perceptrons trained on Landsat spectral recovery signatures and corrected with provincial inventories where available. It extends the existing Canada Landsat Disturbance (CanLaD) record to provide a pan-Canadian history from 1965 to 2023.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term forest carbon dynamics based on historical disturbance type and year estimates.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of wildfire and harvest activity in transition zones like the Boreal Shield edge.
• Cross-referencing insect outbreak detections with historic reports to validate and date outbreaks.
• Assessing disturbance recovery rates by grouping predicted disturbance years into age classes.

Strengths

• Provides a 20-year historical record (1965-1984) at a consistent 30-meter spatial resolution.
• Integrates corrections from provincial forest inventories to improve disturbance type and year accuracy.
• Methodology and validation are described in detail in a 2024 peer-reviewed publication (Correia et al.).

Limitations

• Disturbance year predictions contain noise and are recommended for use in age classes rather than specific years.
• Fire-harvest misclassification is common in transition zones, and 1965 fires may be overestimated in northern areas.
• Insect outbreak detections are not assigned specific years at the pixel level, requiring external data for dating.

Provenance

Source

Natural Resources Canada

Collection Method

Generated using multi-layer perceptrons (MLP) on Landsat spectral recovery signatures, with predictions corrected using external provincial datasets.

Time Range

1965 to 1984

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-17 19:30:56.715924; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Canada