British Columbia Protected Lands and Waters by Ecoregion and Biogeoclimatic Zone

British Columbia's protected lands and waters are summarized in tabular datasets from a June 2016 indicator analysis. The data include the number and total area of protected areas, broken down by designation across ecoregions and biogeoclimatic zones. The Government of British Columbia compiled the summaries from three sources, including the 2015 Canadian Council on Ecological Areas database and provincial conservation lands data.

Use Cases

• Analyze total protected area coverage in British Columbia based on hectares and percent metrics
• Compare protection levels across different ecoregions based on breakdowns by designation
• Assess conservation representation across biogeoclimatic zones based on area data with overlaps removed
• Track changes in protected area designations over time using the reproducible R code

Strengths

• Data integrates three authoritative sources: a national protected areas database, provincial conservation lands data, and private conservation lands data
• Analysis removes overlaps to provide a consolidated view of total protected area
• Reproducible R code is available on GitHub for transparency

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Data is based on sources accessed in January 2016 and published in June 2016; freshness should be verified
• Municipal and regional parks were not included in the analyses

Provenance

Source

Government of British Columbia

Collection Method

Analysis of protected area data from the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas database, provincial Conservation Lands Data, and private conservation lands database.

Time Range

Source data accessed in January 2016; indicator published in June 2016.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-17 15:30:39.304038; based on 2015/2016 source data.

Geography

British Columbia, Canada, analyzed by ecoregion and biogeoclimatic zone.