Bay of Quinte Fish Nursery Habitat Suitability at High Water Level

Habitat suitability for fish nursery stages in Canada's Bay of Quinte was modeled at a 3-meter grid resolution using depth, vegetation, and substrate variables. The assessment covers a 39-year period from 1972 to 2011, with suitability values scaled from 0 to 1 and classified into four categories. It was produced by Fisheries and Oceans Canada using the Habitat Ecosystem Assessment Tool (HEAT).

Use Cases

• Train a geospatial model to predict habitat suitability values (0-1) based on depth, vegetation, and substrate variables.
• Analyze temporal trends in maximum suitability classes (very low to high) for nursery habitat over the 39-year period from 1972 to 2011.
• Integrate the 3-meter grid resolution suitability maps with other aquatic ecology datasets for the Bay of Quinte Area of Concern.

Strengths

• Suitability values are derived from three documented environmental variables: depth, vegetation, and substrate.
• The data provides a 39-year temporal coverage from 1972 to 2011 for analyzing long-term habitat changes.
• Spatial modeling was conducted at a high 3-meter grid resolution for the Bay of Quinte area.

Limitations

• The dataset is specific to high water level (75.4m ASL) and nursery habitat for high vegetation association species, limiting generalizability.
• Suitability is a modeled output based on documented associations, not direct field measurements, which may introduce inaccuracies.
• Data is provided in geospatial formats (ESRI REST, FGDB) requiring specialized GIS software for analysis.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Collection Method

Modeled using the Habitat Ecosystem Assessment Tool (HEAT), temperature algorithms, vegetation models, and water level input.

Time Range

1972 to 2011

Freshness

Last updated in March 2026.

Geography

Bay of Quinte Area of Concern, Canada