This dataset provides treed area dynamics across Canada's 650 Mha forested ecosystems from 1984 to 2022, derived from Landsat-based annual land cover layers at a 30-m spatial resolution. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). This dataset identifies areas that remained treed, transitioned to treed (newly treed), or transitioned to other cover that is not treed vegetation (was-treed). The data enable national and regional assessments of long-term changes in treed area, capturing trends in treed area, post-disturbance recovery, and shifts in forest extent.When using this data, please cite as: Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M.A., White, J.C., Bater, C.W., Baral, S.K., Leach, J.A., 2025. Expansion of treed area over Canada’s forested ecosystems: spatial and temporal trends. Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research 98(5) 786-799. https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpaf015. (Hermosilla et al. 2025)

Wall-to-wall map of water bodies across Canada's forested ecosystems for the year 2022, derived from the "water" class of the annual Virtual Land Cover of Engine (VLCE) product. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). The VLCE maps are based on Landsat image time-series composites and represent annual land cover classifications from 1984 to 2022 at a spatial resolution of 30 m. The classification process integrates forest change information and ancillary topographic and hydrologic variables, applying a regional modeling framework based on a 150x150 km tiling system ( Hermosilla et al., 2022). Training data are drawn from multiple land cover sources and selected proportionally to land cover distributions using a distance-weighted approach. Classifications are refined over time using a Hidden Markov Model to ensure consistency and reduce classification noise between years.Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M.A., White, J.C., Coops, N.C. 2022. Land cover classification in an era of big and open data: Optimizing localized implementation and training data selection to improve mapping outcomes. Remote Sensing of Environment. 268, 112780. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112780. ( Hermosilla et al., 2022)Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M.A., White, J.C., Coops, N.C., Hobart, G.W. 2018. Disturbance-Informed Annual Land Cover Classification Maps of Canada's Forested Ecosystems for a 29-Year Landsat Time Series. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing. 44(1) 67-87. https://doi.org/10.1080/07038992.2018.1437719.( Hermosilla et al., 2018)

High-resolution false-color Landsat image composite of Canada's forested ecosystems (2022). This national image product represents the Composite to Change (C2C) proxy composite image derived from thousands of Landsat images acquired between July 1 and August 30, 2022. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). The overall process followed is described in (Hermosilla et al. 2016 ) with details on the generation of gap-free surface reflectance composites in ( Hermosilla et al. 2015). Following the motivation and rationale presented in White et al. (White et al. 2014), Landsat imagery is subjected to a series of processing steps to remove clouds and shadows as well as haze and other unwanted atmospheric effects. Year-on-year time series of Landsat imagery are interrogated to avoid missing values, and to ensure exhaustive spatial coverage of the national surface reflectance composites. False-colour 3-channel image (bands: shortwave infrared, SWIR1; near infrared; red)When using these data, please cite as: Hermosilla, T., M.A. Wulder, J.C. White, N.C. Coops, G.W. Hobart, L.B. Campbell, 2016. Mass data processing of time series Landsat imagery: pixels to data products for forest monitoring. International Journal of Digital Earth 9(11), 1035-1054 (Hermosilla et al. 2016 ).

Satellite-based forest area consistent with FAO definitions for Canada. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). The forest area is based on the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) definition. The FAO definition incorporates land use, whereby trees removed by fire and harvesting for instance, remain forest as the trees will return. The included map displays the current forest cover for year as noted (i.e. 2022), plus the satellite-based temporally informed forest area where tree cover has been temporarily lost due to stand replacing disturbances (i.e., fire, harvest). For an overview of the methods, data, image processing, as well as information on accuracy assessment see Wulder et al. (2020).Open Access: Wulder, M.A., T. Hermosilla, G. Stinson, F.A. Gougeon, J.C. White, D.A. Hill, B.P. Smiley. (2020). Satellite-based time series land cover and change information to map forest area consistent with national and international reporting requirements. Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research 93(3), 331-34, https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpaa0063 . ( Wulder et al. 2020)

Satellite-based forest area consistent with FAO definitions for Canada. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). The forest area is based on the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) definition. The FAO definition incorporates land use, whereby trees removed by fire and harvesting for instance, remain forest as the trees will return. The included map displays the current forest cover for year as noted (i.e. 2022), plus the satellite-based temporally informed forest area where tree cover has been temporarily lost due to stand replacing disturbances (i.e., fire, harvest). For an overview of the methods, data, image processing, as well as information on accuracy assessment see Wulder et al. (2020).Open Access: Wulder, M.A., T. Hermosilla, G. Stinson, F.A. Gougeon, J.C. White, D.A. Hill, B.P. Smiley. (2020). Satellite-based time series land cover and change information to map forest area consistent with national and international reporting requirements. Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research 93(3), 331-34, https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpaa0063 . ( Wulder et al. 2020)

High-resolution binary wetland map for Canada (2001-2016). Wetland map for the forested ecosystems of Canada focused on current conditions. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). The binary wetland data included in this product is national in scope (entirety of forested ecosystem) and represents the wall to wall characterization for 2001-2016 (see Wulder et al. 2018). This product was generated using both annual gap free composite reflectance images and annual forest change maps following the Virtual Land Cover Engine (VLCE) process (see Hermosilla et al. 2018), over the 650 million ha forested ecosystems of Canada. Elements of the VLCE classification approach are inclusion of disturbance information in the processes as well as ensuring class transitions over time are logical. Further, a Hidden Markov Model is implemented to assess individual year class likelihoods to reduce variability and possible noise in year-on-year class assignments (for instances when class likelihoods are similar). For this product, to be considered as currently a wetland a pixel must have been classified as wetland at least 80% or 13 of the 16 years between 2001 and 2016, inclusively. For an overview on the data, image processing, and time series change detection methods applied, see Wulder et al. (2018). Wulder, M.A., Z. Li, E. Campbell, J.C. White, G. Hobart, T. Hermosilla, and N.C. Coops (2018). A National Assessment of Wetland Status and Trends for Canada’s Forested Ecosystems Using 33 Years of Earth Observation Satellite Data. Remote Sensing. For a detailed description of the VLCE process and the subsequently generated land cover product, including an accuracy assessment, please see Hermosilla et al. (2018).

The wetland year count data included in this product is national in scope (entire forested ecosystem) and represents a wall to wall wetland characterization for 1984-2016 (Wulder et al. 2018). It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). This product was generated using both annual gap free composite reflectance images and annual forest change maps following the Virtual Land Cover Engine (VLCE) process (see Hermosilla et al. 2018), over the 650 million ha forested ecosystems of Canada. Elements of the VLCE classification approach are inclusion of disturbance information in the processes as well as ensuring class transitions over time are logical. Further, a Hidden Markov Model is implemented to assess individual year class likelihoods to reduce variability and possible noise in year-on-year class assignments (for instances when class likelihoods are similar). The values can range from 0 to 33 denoting the number of years between 1984 and 2016 that a pixel was classified as wetland or wetland-treed in the VLCE data cube.For an overview on the data, image processing, and time series change detection methods applied, as well as information on independent accuracy assessment of the data, see Hermosilla et al. (2016; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2016.1187673). A detailed description of the VLCE process and the subsequently generated land cover product, including an accuracy assessment, please see Hermosilla et al. (2018). The focused wetland analyses can be found described in Wulder et al (2018).Geographic extent: Canada's forested ecosystems (~ 650 Mha)Time period: 1985–2011

Forest Percent Above Mean 2015Percentage of first returns above the mean height (%). It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). Represents the canopy cover above mean canopy height. Products relating the structure of Canada's forested ecosystems have been generated and made openly accessible. The shared products are based upon peer-reviewed science and relate aspects of forest structure including: (i) metrics calculated directly from the lidar point cloud with heights normalized to heights above the ground surface (e.g., canopy cover, height), and (ii) modelled inventory attributes, derived using an area-based approach generated by using co-located ground plot and ALS data (e.g., volume, biomass). Forest structure estimates were generated by combining information from lidar plots (Wulder et al. 2012) with Landsat pixel-based composites (White et al. 2014; Hermosilla et al. 2016) using a nearest neighbour imputation approach with a Random Forests-based distance metric. These products were generated for strategic-level forest monitoring information needs and are not intended to support operational-level forest management. All products have a spatial resolution of 30 m. For a detailed description of the data, methods applied, and accuracy assessment results see Matasci et al. (2018). When using this data, please cite as follows: Matasci, G., Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M.A., White, J.C., Coops, N.C., Hobart, G.W., Bolton, D.K., Tompalski, P., Bater, C.W., 2018b. Three decades of forest structural dynamics over Canada's forested ecosystems using Landsat time-series and lidar plots. Remote Sensing of Environment 216, 697-714. Matasci et al. 2018)Geographic extent: Canada's forested ecosystems (~ 650 Mha)Time period: 1985–2011

Wildfire change magnitude 1985-2022. Spectral change magnitude for wildfires that occurred from 1985 to 2022. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). The wildfire change magnitude included in this product is expressed via differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR), computed as the variation between the spectral values before and after a given change event. Higher dNBR values are related to higher burn severity. Time series of Landsat data with 30-m spatial resolution were used to characterize national trends in stand replacing forest disturbances caused by wildfire for the period 1985-2022 for Canada's 650 million-hectare forested ecosystems.When using this data, please cite as: Hermosilla, T., M.A. Wulder, J.C. White, N.C. Coops, G.W. Hobart, L.B. Campbell, 2016. Mass data processing of time series Landsat imagery: pixels to data products for forest monitoring. International Journal of Digital Earth 9(11), 1035-1054. (Hermosilla et al. 2016).See references below for an overview on the data processing, metric calculation, change attribution and time series change detection methods applied, as well as information on independent accuracy assessment of the data.Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M. A., White, J. C., Coops, N.C., Hobart, G.W., 2015. An integrated Landsat time series protocol for change detection and generation of annual gap-free surface reflectance composites. Remote Sensing of Environment 158, 220-234. (Hermosilla et al. 2015a).Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M.A., White, J.C., Coops, N.C., Hobart, G.W., 2015. Regional detection, characterization, and attribution of annual forest change from 1984 to 2012 using Landsat-derived time-series metrics. Remote Sensing of Environment 170, 121-132. (Hermosilla et al. 2015b).

Post-disturbance forest recovery data for Canada's forested ecosystems, representing a total area of ~650 million ha, captures the return of forests following wildfire and harvest that occurred between 1986 and 2012. It is developed within the framework of Canada’s National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS). These spatially-explicit outputs represent the rate of spectral recovery: the rate at which a pixel returns to 80% of its pre-disturbance value (White et al. 2017) within the observation period (1985-2017) using the Y2R or Years-to-Recovery metric derived from Landsat times series data. Baseline rates of spectral recovery (Y2R) were defined for each of Canada's 12 forested ecozones. These baselines were then used to identify spatial clusters of recovering pixels on the landscape where Y2R were either significantly faster or slower than their ecozonal baseline. Finally, areas that were disturbed by wildfire and harvest (1986-2012), but which had not recovered by the end of the observation period (2017) are also provided. Note that these areas are still recovering, but they had not yet recovered according to our metric of spectral recovery, by the end of the time series in 2017. For an overview of the methods, the validation of the Y2R metric, and interpretation of the derived trends, see White et al. (2022) and White et al. (2017).White, J.C., Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M.A., Coops, N.C., 2022. Mapping, validating, and interpreting spatio-temporal trends in post-disturbance forest recovery. Remote Sensing of Environment, 271, 112904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2022.112904 ( White et al. 2022)White, J.C., Wulder, M.A., Hermosilla, T., Coops, N.C., Hobart, G.W. 2017. A nationwide annual characterization of 25 years of forest disturbance and recovery for Canada using Landsat time series. Remote Sensing of Environment, 194, pp. 303-321. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.03.035 .( White et al. 2017)