Human activities occurring on land can impact marine coastal ecosystems. Baseline information on the locations and intensity of these activities are critical components of any impact assessment or spatial planning approach seeking to mitigate stress and protect or restore coastal ecosystems. As part of a wider project, land use maps were created for 109 coastal watersheds draining into the Scotian Shelf Bioregion – a biophysical subdivision of Canada’s marine waters in the Maritimes Region of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Information was compiled from various national and provincial publicly available spatial data sources. Each map provides basic statistics on areal values of different land cover types (such as forested areas, pervious or impervious surfaces, agricultural areas, peatlands, parks and protected areas, wetlands and freshwater bodies), human population density, building locations, and locations of major riverine pour points. This project was funded by Fisheries and Oceans Canada through a Strategic Program for Ecosystem-based Research and Advice (SPERA) grant. Source Guijarro-Sabaniel, J., Kelly, N.E. 2022. Land Use Atlas for Coastal Watersheds in the Maritimes Region. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 3494: viii + 135 p. Associated publication Kelly, N.E., Guijarro-Sabaniel, J. and Zimmerman, R., 2021. Anthropogenic nitrogen loading and risk of eutrophication in the coastal zone of Atlantic Canada. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 263, p.107630. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2021.107630Cite this data as: Guijarro-Sabaniel, J. Kelly, N.E. Land use atlas for coastal watersheds in the Maritimes Region. Published May 2022. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S.

The Coastal Environmental Baseline Program is a multi-year Fisheries and Oceans Canada initiative designed to work with Indigenous and local communities and other key parties to collect coastal environmental data at six unique sites across Canada, including the Port of Saint John (New Brunswick). The overall purpose of the Program is to collect localized ecological data in these areas to build a better baseline understanding of marine ecological conditions. The Maritimes region has developed a physical oceanography project to align with the interests and data needs of local communities and stakeholders. Starting in 2020, data describing the depth and temperature of tidal flood waters have been collected at a series of intertidal locations in the Port of Saint John vicinity, to characterize high marsh flood tides and water level fluctuations near the Courtenay Bay causeway. Inundation by marine waters in high marsh areas is typically limited to spring tides, while the water level in Courtenay Bay is influenced by anthropogenic infrastructure (e.g. causeway, tide gates). The resulting data can enhance studies ranging from coastal vulnerability and resilience to salt marsh morphodynamics, by quantifying the frequency, amplitude and duration of tidal inundation. Data were collected using Hobo U20-001-02 water level loggers, which were deployed inside stilling wells constructed from 15-inch lengths of perforated ABS pipe (2¼” diameter). The stilling wells were sunk to a depth of 6 inches below ground, with the water level logger suspended inside the well from a bolt near the top. The logger was positioned with a rigid wire such that the measurement volume was equal to ground level, while allowing the logger to be easily removed for downloading and precisely replaced at the measurement location. Loggers were accessed 2-3 times per year to download, and were removed during the winter months. Data have been compensated for changing atmospheric pressure using the Barometric Compensation Tool in HobowarePro (version 3.7.21) and barometric pressure data collected from a dry location during the study period. The resulting water level is reported in meters, and is relative to the elevation of the water level logger (e.g. above ground level).Citation: Port of Saint John intertidal water level and temperature (2020-2022). Coastal Environmental Baseline Program. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews, N.B. XX-XX-2024

Monitoring programs are an important component of Marine Protected Area (MPA) management, providing requisite information on the state of, and changes in, protected ecosystems. Monitoring is required to gauge the efficacy of MPAs towards their conservation objectives and provides information needed to evaluate the benefits provided to biodiversity from restricted access. However, in Nova Scotia’s coastal zone, there is a lack of baseline data, including fish diversity and community structure in macrophyte beds, which makes monitoring intractable. In 2017, the Eastern Shore Islands was identified as a coastal Area of Interest (AOI) for the potential establishment of an MPA. In 2018 an overview was conducted, detailing the spatial and temporal ecological attributes of the AOI. This information revealed a unique coastal ecosystem associated with a dense archipelago and relatively natural seascape. The abundance of plant and algal biogenic habitats within the area was assumed to host a diversity of juvenile fish species. The primary objective of this project is to begin development of a long-term biodiversity monitoring program in the Eastern Shore Islands and other coastal Areas of Interest for conservation planning. We propose implementing this program with the use of direct (beach seines, scuba diving, and stable isotope sampling) and indirect (environmental DNA - eDNA) sampling. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a useful tool to examine marine biodiversity in a non-invasive way, on a small spatial scale. eDNA can be easily collected and filtered and is becoming increasingly cost efficient to sequence and may be a useful marine protected area monitoring tool. While eDNA generally yields comparable results to traditional sampling techniques in terms of biodiversity captured, little is known on how eDNA signals fluctuate across years (or even days to weeks). We will compare species detections using eDNA metabarcoding to visual surveys (scuba and seine nets) to census eelgrass beds across the coastal zone, providing a baseline and time series of species diversity on which to base long-term monitoring. This project will generate inventories of eelgrass bed locations, and fish and invertebrate diversity within eelgrass beds. We additionally collect fish length distribution data to examine seasonal and inter-annual trends in size structure over time. The data generated from direct and indirect sampling will provide a comprehensive and ongoing catalog of species diversity and community structure in coastal eelgrass beds, as well as best-practices for sampling eDNA in the coastal environment.Cite this data as: Jeffery, N.W., Pettitt-Wade, H., Van Wyngaarden, M., and Stanley, R.R.E. Maritimes Coastal Biodiversity Monitoring Program – Beach Seining.Published: December 2023. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Maritimes region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth NS. https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/dbbcb23a-d018-4b70-b8ec-89997aded770

The Coastal Environmental Baseline Program is a multi-year Fisheries and Oceans Canada initiative designed to work with Indigenous and local communities and other key parties to collect coastal environmental data at a series of sites across Canada, to build a better understanding of existing marine ecological conditions. The program began data collection in 2019, and with the onset of Phase 2 in 2023, the Maritimes region study area was expanded and renamed ‘Northwest Fundy Shores’. A physical oceanography program was designed to align with the oceanographic interests and data needs of local interest holders. Starting in 2023, oceanographic parameters including water temperature, salinity, depth and turbidity have been monitored at a series of locations in Passamaquoddy Bay, the St. Croix River, and along the Bay of Fundy coast, including the Musquash estuary Marine Protected Area (MPA). This dataset includes seasonal CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth) and turbidity data starting in spring 2023. Instruments are maintained through the winter months at a limited number of sites. Data collection methods are primarily moored instruments on the bottom in water depths of 5-90 meters, and a few buoyant surface floats. Overall, this dataset captures seasonal dynamics in near-shore marine environments in Passamaquoddy Bay, the St Croix River, the Bay of Fundy and the Musquash MPA. Cite this data as: Coastal Environmental Baseline Program (Maritimes Region), Northwest Fundy Shores conductivity, temperature and depth data. Published in May 2025. Coastal Environmental Baseline Program. Coastal Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. Andrews, N.B. 14-02-2025

This dataset was designed for Environment and Climate Change Canada's (ECCC) National Environmental Emergencies Center (NEEC) for oil spill preparedness and response. The polygons from this layer come from the coastal ecosystems geodatabase as part of the Mapping of coastal ecosystems of the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence project. This layer represents semi-vegetated (25-75%) and vegetated (75-100%) zones of which marsh vegetation is the dominant. The study area includes all of the estuarine and maritime coasts of Quebec, with the exception of certain sectors, including most of the Lower North Shore and Anticosti Island, with the exception of villages of Kegaska, la Romaine, Chevery, Blanc-Sablon and Port-Menier. Some islands off the estuary and gulf coasts are part of the region covered, such as Île d'Orléans, Isle-aux-Coudres, Île Verte and Île Bonaventure.The mapping of coastal ecosystems was carried out jointly by the Laboratory for Dynamics and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (LDGIZC) of the University of Quebec at Rimouski as part of the Coastal Resilience Project (https: //ldgizc.uqar.ca/Web/projets/projet-resilience-cotiere) funded by the MELCC; and by the Fisheries and Oceans Canada team, as part of its Integrated marine response planning (IMRP) component of the Oceans Protection Plan (OPP), with the objective of updating the Marine Oil Spill Preparedness and Response Regime of Canada. The master geodatabase of coastal ecosystems is hosted and distributed by UQAR on their SIGEC-Web mapping platform: https://ldgizc.uqar.ca/Web/sigecwebThe characterization of marshes was mainly carried out using photo-interpretation of RVBI aerial photos acquired by DFO (2015-2020) and oblique photos taken by helicopter acquired by UQAR in 2017. This dataset also includes the information from validation stations visited by UQAR (2018-2020), used to validate and refine the photo-interpretation.

Location of Harbour Seal haulout locations in coastal BC waters. CRIMS is a legacy dataset of BC coastal resource data that was acquired in a systematic and synoptic manner from 1979 and was intermittently updated throughout the years. Resource information was collected in nine study areas using a peer-reviewed provincial Resource Information Standards Committee consisting of DFO Fishery Officers, First Nations, and other subject matter experts. There are currently no plans to update this legacy data.

Points, polylines and polygons where species and features have been found, harvested or detailed.Community Based Coastal Resource Inventory (CCRI) – Fisheries and Oceans Canada in conjunction with several Federal and Provincial agencies created, implemented, and managed a program which set out to develop a coastal resource inventory based on the traditional knowledge of local residents. Through partnerships with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Regional Economic Development (RED) Boards and other community based groups the project assembled a database containing several decade’s worth of local knowledge. The value of the information collected came through individual interviews with people who had extensive knowledge of the immediate geography and resource, having lived, worked and harvested the regions over a lifetime. This project ran from 1996 to 2007.

Station locations for moorings deployed as part of the Centre for Marine Applied Research's (CMAR) Coastal Monitoring Program. The moorings record high-resolution temperature, dissolved oxygen, and intermittent salinity data at various depths, typically for several months. The dataset for each county is available at https://data.novascotia.ca/browse?Detailed-Metadata_Department=Fisheries+and+Aquaculture&tags=coastal+monitoring+program For more information on CMAR and the Coastal Monitoring Program go to: https://cmar.ca/coastal-monitoring-program/

The Coastal Infrastructure Vulnerability Index (CIVI) was jointly developed by DFO Science Branch, Small Craft Harbours (SCH) Program and the Economic Analysis and Statistics Directorate. The CIVI was designed with the intent of developing a climate change adaptation tool that would support management decisions regarding the long-term infrastructure planning for SCH sites.The CIVI provides a numerical indication of the relative vulnerability of small craft harbour sites to the effects of climate change and was designed with three component sub-indices: Environmental Exposure (natural forces), Infrastructure, and Socio-economic. The spatial component for the coastline was derived from the CanVec 1:50,000 hydrographic layer (https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/9d96e8c9-22fe-4ad2-b5e8-94a6991b744b).This layer combines the 1:50,000 CanVec coastline of Canada with the following CIVI environmental exposure variables:- projected sea level rise (for the decades 2030, 2040,...2100) in meters- wave height (metres) and wind speed (metres/second)- change in sea ice coverage in Atlantic Canada from the 1970s to the 2000sSea level change:Data for relative sea level change (SLC) were derived from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC 2014, AR5). The projected relative sea level change under the high emission scenario (RCP8.5) was calculated for all years between 2006 and 2100. Sea level change for the years 2030, 2040, 2050, 2060, 2070, 2080, 2090, and 2100 were used.Wind Speed and Wave HeightModelled hindcasts of yearly maximum wind speed (1990 - 2012) and wave height (1990- 2014) were used. This dataset was generated from IFREMER wave hindcasts using the WAVEWATCH III model with wind data from NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) (Saha et al. 2010). Two high resolution (10 minute) grids of Atlantic and Pacific maximum modeled wind speeds and maximum significant wave height were used for southern Canadian coastal areas while a coarser (30 minute) worldwide grid was used for the Arctic areas. From these datasets the mean annual maximum wind speed over 23 years and the mean maximum significant wave height over 25 years were calculated.Change in sea ice coverage:Sea ice data from the Canadian Ice Service were acquired for Atlantic and Arctic Canada, representing percent ice coverage for each week over four decades (1970s, 1980s, 1990, 2000s). For each decade a single dataset was calculated to represent the sum of all weeks with ice coverage in excess of 50%, with a maximum possible score of 52 weeks for each decade. To measure change in ice duration, the summary mapsheet from the 2000s was subtracted from the 1970s summary mapsheet. The final dataset represents the change between the 1970s and 2000s in the number of weeks with ice concentrations greater than 50%. A positive number indicates a reduction in weeks of ice coverage, a negative number an increase in ice coverage.The data for individual small craft harbours included here contains predicted sea level change for the decades between 2030 and 2100, wave height, windspeed, change in sea ice coverage, population, and the final environmental exposure sub-index value (ESI). The population for each harbour is derived from the 2016 Census of Canada data for the Census subdivision (CSD) geographic unit.Reference:Relative sea-level projections for Canada based on the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report and the NAD83v70VG national crustal velocity modelhttps://doi.org/10.4095/327878 IPCC, 2014. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L. White (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 1132 pp.Cite this data as: Greenan B. and Greyson P. Coastal Environmental Exposure Layer. Published March 2022. Ocean Ecosystem Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S.

The Coastal Environmental Baseline Program is a multi-year Fisheries and Oceans Canada initiative designed to work with Indigenous and local communities and other key parties to collect coastal environmental data at six pilot sites across Canada (Port of Vancouver, Port of Prince Rupert, Lower St. Lawrence Estuary, Port of Saint John, Placentia Bay, and Iqaluit). The goal of the Program is to gather local information in these areas in effort to build a better understanding of marine ecological conditions. The Maritimes region has developed a physical oceanography program to align with the oceanographic interests and data needs of local communities and stakeholders, with the goal of sharing this information via open data. Starting in 2019, oceanographic parameters including temperature, salinity, depth, turbidity and currents have been continuously monitored at a series of locations covering a broad range of environments in the Port of Saint John and approaches vicinity, including the lower Saint John and Kennebecasis rivers, coastal fringe marshes and embayments, as well as the Musquash estuary Marine Protected Area (MPA). This dataset includes CTD data starting in 2019 and turbidity data from August 2020. Data collection methods range from bottom-mounted instruments in water depths of 10-50 meters, buoyant surface moorings, and hard-mounted instruments in intertidal zones. Intertidal data is interrupted during some low tide events, where the water level drops below the sensor, resulting in loss of functionality for periods up to 1-2 hours. Overall this dataset captures a dynamic balance between salt and fresh water on the highly tidal lower Saint John river, coastal seasonal dynamics in near-shore marine environments in the Musquash MPA, and the constant fluctuations of intertidal creeks and marshes.Update 2 - April 2025: included 2023-24 dataUpdate 1 - Nov 2023: included 2022 data; removed daylight savings errors from 2019, 2020 and 2021; updated position for Evandale surface mooring.