Nearshore Bottom Patches for Pacific Canada's Coastal Habitat

864,531 bottom patch polygons map substrate types from the high water line to 50m depth along the Pacific Canadian coast. Fisheries and Oceans Canada created this continuous substrate map using an approach designed for iterative improvement as data availability increases. The data are intended for scientific research to support ecosystem-based management.

Use Cases

• Model marine species distributions by linking bottom type patches from the BoP polygons to known habitat preferences.
• Assess anthropogenic risk to coastal ecosystems by overlaying human activity data with the substrate confidence surface.
• Analyze habitat structure by examining the size and distribution of the 110,313 BoP polygons in the West Coast of Vancouver Island region.
• Validate and improve bathymetric ecozone models by using the depth ribbon polygons that served as an input to create the BoPs.

Strengths

• Contains 864,531 total bottom patch (BoP) polygons across five defined coastal regions.
• Based on a quantitative and transparent methodology described in Gregr et al. (2013), making it amenable to updates.
• Integrates a corresponding confidence surface for the bottom type values, based on observation agreement and distance.
• Derived from high-resolution (20x20 m2) bathymetry data used to create the input depth ribbons.

Limitations

• Horizontal accuracy is variable, ranging from meters to tens of meters due to source data and processing.
• Bottom type values in areas without direct observations are predictions, which may reduce local accuracy.
• The dataset's static nature may not capture dynamic changes in the highly variable nearshore environment over time.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Collection Method

Created by synthesizing the best available bottom type field observations and predictions into a continuous spatial map using a prescribed quantitative framework.

Freshness

Last updated March 24, 2026.

Geography

The entire Pacific Canadian coast from the high water line to 50 meters depth, divided into five regions: West Coast Vancouver Island, Queen Charlotte Strait/Strait of Georgia, North Central Coast, and Haida Gwaii.