SIFORT: Quebec Forest Inventory Data on a Fixed 14-Hectare Grid

SIFORT is a geospatial forest database for Quebec composed of polygonal units averaging 14 hectares each. The system integrates forest information from up to five historical inventories, assigning data like cover type, disturbance origin, and species density to each grid cell. This fixed analysis grid, maintained by the Government and Municipalities of Québec, supports temporal studies for sustainable forest management.

Use Cases

• Modeling forest composition changes over time based on integrated inventory data.
• Analyzing the impact of natural disturbances like fire and insects based on disturbance type and year fields.
• Supporting sustainable forest management planning based on species, density, and cover type information.
• Conducting statistical studies on a fixed spatial grid to ensure consistent temporal comparisons.

Strengths

• Data is structured on a consistent spatial grid with units averaging 14 hectares.
• Integrates forest information from multiple historical inventories, suggesting temporal depth.
• License is clearly defined as CC-BY-4.0, facilitating reuse.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Government and Municipalities of Québec | Gouvernement et municipalités du Québec

Collection Method

Data assigned to centroids of a fixed polygonal grid from forest inventories.

Time Range

Covers periods of the first through fifth forest inventories, when available.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-22 17:35:35.463126; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Quebec territory.