In 1997, a magnitude 4.6 earthquake occurred 3 to 4 km beneath the Strait of Georgia, near Vancouver. This scenario visualizes the effects of that event if it occurred today with a magnitude of 5.0. A magnitude 7.0 Georgia Strait scenario is also provided, and represents a less likely but more consequential case for comparison.

Marine Ecosection classification for coastal and offshore British Columbia. The Marine Ecosections are: Johnstone Strait; Continental Slope; Dixon Entrance; Hecate Strait; Queen Charlotte Strait; Juan de Fuca Strait; North Coast Fjords; Queen Charlotte Sound; Strait of Georgia; Subarctic Pacific; Transitional Pacific; and Vancouver Island Shelf. The British Columbia Marine Ecological Classification (BCMEC) is a hierarchical classification that delineates Provincial marine areas into Ecozones, Ecoprovinces, Ecoregions and Ecosections. The classification was developed from previous Federal and Provincial marine ecological classifications which were based on 1:2,000,000 scale information. The BCMEC has been developed for marine and coastal planning, resource management and a Provincial marine protected areas strategy. A new, smaller level of classification termed ecounits developed using 1:250,000 scale depth, current, exposure, subsurface relief and substrate was created to verify the larger ecosections, and to delineate their boundaries. 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.

Full rupture of the Leech River Fault, a fault that cuts southern Vancouver Island and extends beneath Greater Victoria. Based on current science, this magnitude 7.3 earthquake scenario represents the strongest ground shaking event that could strike the region, and is one of Greater Victoria’s most severe events.

Temporal analysis of changes for Victoria, British Columbia, based on GeoAI features automatically extracted from satellite images acquired in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. Simple geospatial analysis intersecting Statistics Canada's Open Database of Buildings, version 3 (ODB v3) with GeoAI multidate building features enables the detection of buildings observed in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. The addition of new buildings is a good indicator of urban development and/or sprawl. Using the same approach, GeoAI multidate roads enable the detection of Statistics Canada's National Roads Network (NRN) segments present in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. The development of new roads is also indicator of urban development and/or sprawl. Complementarily, an analysis of changes in the forest coverage from the GeoAI datasets is done between the 2000s and the 2020s. This analysis reflects the gains and losses between both dates.‌GeoAI enables temporal coverage of various areas in Canada, thus providing a useful tool for change detection and trend analysis at high resolution. While the series is still fairly new, and such examples are limited for the time being, NRCan strives to gradually increase its GeoAI data offering for both spatial and temporal coverage.For more information about the GeoAI - GeoBase Series, please visit the following link: https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/74738ff5-5367-5958-9aee-98fffdcd1876

In 1997, a magnitude 4.6 earthquake occurred 3 to 4 km beneath the Strait of Georgia, near Vancouver. This scenario visualizes the effects of that event if it occurred today with a magnitude of 4.9. A magnitude 7.0 Georgia Strait scenario is also provided, and represents a less likely but more consequential case for comparison.

Zooplankton data collected during surveys conducted in the central and northern Strait of Georgia, 1996-2018.

The Strait of Belle Isle connects the Labrador Shelf and Gulf of St. Lawrence. Few observations of currents in the Strait of Belle Isle exist despite its important contribution to the heat, salt, and mass budgets of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This is because the deployment of instruments is complicated by the Strait’s remote location, its strong currents, and the presence of thick winter sea ice and icebergs. The present data set aims to provide a long-term time series of currents in the Strait of Belle Isle.Data were collected using a moored Teledyne RDI Workhorse 300 KHz acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP). The ADCP was mounted on a subsurface buoy anchored 5 m from the sea floor, in water approximately 70 m deep near the north shore of the Strait (56° 37.2 W, 51° 34.7 N). This instrument provides three-dimensional current profiles every 30 minutes at a vertical resolution of 4 m. Backscatter intensity is also collected at the same resolution. Raw data were processed using the Magtogoek software (https://github.com/iml-gddaiss/magtogoek), developed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Quality flags have been assigned to the data based on beam sidelobe contamination and required thresholds for extreme velocities, beam correlation and percentage of good four-beam transformations. The ancillary data used to apply this quality control are included in the data set.Reference :Shaw, J.-L., & Galbraith, P. S. (2023). Climatology of transport in the Strait of Belle Isle. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 128, e2022JC019084. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JC019084

This layer details Important Areas (IAs) relevant to important geographic features in the West Coast Vancouver Island (WCVI) ecoregion. This data was mapped to inform the selection of marine Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSA). Experts have indicated that these areas are relevant based upon their high ranking in one or more of three criteria (Uniqueness, Aggregation, and Fitness Consequences).Canada’s Oceans Act provides the legislative framework for an integrated ecosystem approach to management in Canadian oceans, particularly in areas considered ecologically or biologically significant. DFO has developed general guidance for the identification of ecologically or biologically significant areas. The criteria for defining such areas include uniqueness, aggregation, fitness consequences, resilience, and naturalness. This science advisory process identifies proposed EBSAs in Canadian Pacific marine waters, specifically in the Strait of Georgia (SOG), along the west coast of Vancouver Island (WCVI, southern shelf ecoregion), and in the Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area (PNCIMA, northern shelf ecoregion).Initial assessment of IA's in PNCIMA was carried out in September 2004 to March 2005 with spatial data collection coordinated by Cathryn Clarke. Subsequent efforts in WCVI and SOG were conducted in 2009, and may have used different scientific advisors, temporal extents, data, and assessment methods. WCVI and SOG IA assessment in some cases revisits data collected for PNCIMA, but should be treated as a separate effort.Though data collection is considered complete, the emergence of significant new data may merit revisiting of IA's on a case by case basis.Other datasets in this series detail IAs for birds, cetaceans, fish, other vertebrates, corals and sponges, and other invertebrates.This package also includes project documentation and tech reports relevant to the IA process and its role within the selection of EBSAs.

In 1997, a magnitude 4.6 earthquake occurred 3 to 4 km beneath the Strait of Georgia. This scenario visualizes the effects of that event if it had a magnitude of 7.0, and represents a strong ground shaking event that could strike Metro Vancouver.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has been conducting surface water trawl surveys since 1992 in the coastal waters of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and Alaska and in the high seas of the Gulf of Alaska. These surveys initially focused on determining the migratory patterns (1992-2002) and on the growth and physiology (2003-2016) of juvenile Pacific Salmon. Since 2016, these surveys have been broadened to monitor the whole pelagic ecosystem, retaining a focus on juvenile Pacific Salmon. Data were collected from sites in the inland sea waters of British Columbia and Washington State, USA, that comprise the Strait of Georgia, Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound since 2001 and are ongoing.