Ontario Landcover Database

Abstract:

The Ontario Land Cover Data Base is the first land cover classification in Canada to be completed for an entire province wholly from satellite remote sensing data (multispectral LANDSAT TM). The database was produced in nine segments under three separate programs of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) between 1991 and 1998. The land cover classes consist of vegetation types (such as forest, wetlands, and agricultural crops or pasture) and categories of non-vegetated surface (such as waterbodies, bedrock outcrops, or settlements). The data reflects the nature of the land surface rather than the land use. For example, provincial parks are not discriminated as areas of recreational land use, but are mapped as part of the provincial mosaic of waterbodies, forest types, wetlands, and other cover classes.

Purpose:

This digital data set is useful as a general base map on which you can plot your own features of interest.

Supplemental_Information:

The land cover classification was performed using a supervised classification method, informed by extensive field knowledge of land cover conditions throughout Ontario. Digital image analysis depends on the use of software functions to discriminate among quantitative data on spectral reflectance in various wavelengths; nevertheless, the process is interactive and interpretive.  The image analyst must make sense of spectral differences in the satellite data from the individual's own field knowledge of land cover conditions and understanding of how those conditions are reflected on the satellite image.
Interactive editing was used extensively to map certain classes which could not be positively identified without taking pattern and/or context into account, in addition to spectral values. Through visual interpretation, regenerating old cutovers were differentiated from deciduous forest, wetlands occurring within cutovers were differentiated from their surroundings, and densely treed wetlands were differentiated from coniferous forest. On the basis of context alone, certain areas that by spectral values alone appeared to be sparse forest were identified as settlements. The knowledgeable use of editing techniques improved the overall accuracy of the land cover data significantly.

Currentness_Reference:

publication date

Entity_and_Attribute_Overview:

Description of the Land Cover Classes

1. WATER:  All waterbodies, both deep/clear and shallow/sedimented. 

2. COASTAL MUDFLATS: Unvegetated coastal areas of the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowlands, partly submerged at high tide. 

3. INTERTIDAL MARSH: Coastal marshes of the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowland lying between the coastal mudflats and the supertidal zone.

4. SUPERTIDAL MARSH: Coastal marshes of the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowland lying inland of the Coastal Mudflat and Intertidal Marsh classes and subject to only exceptionally high tides.

5. FRESHWATER COASTAL MARSH/ INLAND MARSH: Coastal marshes of the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowland lying beyond the area of saltwater influence; marshes occurring along lakeshores; Southern Ontario inland marshes characterized by a range of moisture conditions: seasonal marshes, flooded in spring but often dry by fall, that may appear flooded more deeply than other types of inland marsh; cattail marshes that appear generally drier than the flooded seasonal marshes; and grassy meadow marshes which appear generally drier than either the seasonal marshes or cattail marshes. 

6. DECIDUOUS SWAMP: Hardwood swamps of Southern Ontario occurring along rivers and in old lake beds and other low-lying areas; includes thicket swamps in Northern Ontario.  

7. CONIFER SWAMP: Swamps with dense conifer tree or shrub cover occurring mainly in Southern Ontario. 

8. OPEN FEN: Non-treed grassy fens; fens with open pools occurring most extensively in the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowlands; bogs of the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowland that have a high proportion of open water surface (termed "string bogs"). 

9. TREED FEN: Fens with dense shrub cover and tamarack tree cover occurring generally in the province but most extensively in the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowlands. 

10. OPEN BOG: Non-treed bog that may have a partial cover of stunted trees occurring generally in the province but most extensively in the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowlands, where it also includes lichen-rich peat plateau. 

11. TREED BOG: Bog with a low to high density of tree cover. There is expected to be some degree of overlap between densely treed bog and sparse conifer forest in more northerly parts of the province and especially in the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowlands. 

12. TUNDRA HEATH: Areas of dense ericaceous vegetation occurring on better-drained areas only in the Hudson Bay coastal zone. 

13. DENSE DECIDUOUS FOREST: Largely continuous forest canopy composed at least  80 percent of deciduous species; includes deciduous shrub cover on old burns and alder thicket swamps in the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowlands.

14. DENSE CONIFEROUS FOREST: Largely continuous forest canopy composed at least  80 percent of coniferous species; includes dense conifer swamp in the Hudson Bay-James Bay Lowlands.

15. CONIFEROUS PLANTATION:  Mature conifer plantations, mostly pine, occurring in evenly spaced rows, mainly in Southern Ontario. This class does not include artificially regenerated cutovers or burns in Northern Ontario.

16. MIXED FOREST, MAINLY DECIDUOUS: Largely continuous forest canopy composed of coniferous and deciduous species, with deciduous species dominant (i.e., comprising more than 50 percent of the canopy). 

17. MIXED FOREST, MAINLY CONIFEROUS: Largely continuous forest canopy composed of coniferous and deciduous species, with coniferous species dominant (i.e., comprising more than 50 percent of the canopy).

18. SPARSE CONIFEROUS FOREST: Patchy or sparse forest canopy (i.e. approximately 30 to 40 percent canopy closure) composed approximately 80 percent of coniferous species.

19. SPARSE DECIDUOUS FOREST: Patchy or sparse forest canopy (i.e., approximately 30 to 40 percent canopy closure) composed approximately 80 percent of deciduous species.

20. RECENT CUTOVERS: Forest clear-cuts estimated at less than 10 years of age.

21. RECENT BURNS: Forest burns estimated at less than 10 years of age.

22. OLD CUTS AND BURNS: Forest clear-cuts and burns estimated at more than 10 years of age.

23. MINE TAILINGS, QUARRIES, AND BEDROCK OUTCROPS: Clearings for mining activity scattered in all parts of the province; aggregate quarries occurring mainly in Southern Ontario; bedrock outcrops.

24. SETTLEMENT AND DEVELOPED LAND: Clearings for human settlement and economic activity; major transportation routes.

25. PASTURE AND ABANDONED FIELDS: Open grassland with sparse shrubs mapped in  agricultural areas of Southern Ontario; includes orchard lands.

26. CROPLAND: Row crops mapped in Southern Ontario; hay or open soil in areas of agricultural land use. 

27. ALVAR: Homogeneous areas of dry grassland growing on thin soils over a limestone substrate, mapped only where they occur in clusters in the central and eastern portions of Southern Ontario. 

28. UNCLASSIFIED: Small local areas where no classification data could be generated because clouds and their shadows obscured the land surface on the satellite image data.

Ordering_Instructions:

Users must fill in a data request form and sign a license agreement form.