Study Area defined in the Agreement to Conduct a Regional Assessment of Offshore Wind Development in Newfoundland and Labrador. The study area was created by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada in collaboration with Natural Resources Canada and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Proxied dataset of inshore lobster commercial fishing for 2012 - 2021 in the Newfoundland and Labrador region. Only lobster harvested from the Newfoundland and Labrador region are included, based on species sought.Commercial data for the inshore lobster fishery does not require a set of coordinates be provided for catch records. With zero georeferenced inshore lobster records, the inshore lobster fishery leaves a major data gap in one of Newfoundland and Labradors largest fisheries. The Gulf region created a lobster proxy mapping tool, which associated each commercial lobster record with the most likely 10km2 hexagon grid cell based on a number of weighted variables. The tool was adopted by the Newfoundland and Labrador region and altered to work with its own variables which include human use, habitat, accessibility, area/location, home port distance, traditional ecological knowledge and depth. Each hexagon represents the summed total weight of all records associated with a particular hexagon.The best available commercial data used in this model is derived from landings data and may not include catches that have resulted in cash/wharf sales. As a result, there are some areas of Newfoundland and Labrador that may be under represented in this dataset where wharf sales may be high. Therefore, this dataset should be viewed as a general estimation on lobster harvesting patterns within Newfoundland and Labrador.

Spatial Delineation of the Coverage Regions for the Health Boards in Newfoundland and Labrador

Depicts priority area for work under the Regional Assessment of Offshore Wind Development in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Committee for the Regional Assessment of Offshore Wind Development in Newfoundland and Labrador (Committee) is responsible for providing information, knowledge and analysis regarding future offshore wind development (OSW) to inform and improve future planning, licencing and impact assessment processes. The Committee’s mandate is set out in the Agreement to Conduct the Regional Assessment of Offshore Wind Development in Newfoundland and Labrador (Agreement), and includes assessing potential environmental, health, social and economic effects of future OSW. The Agreement includes a broad Study Area. In November 2023, the Committee determined OSW interest in the foreseeable future is more likely within a portion of the Study Area set out in the Agreement. The Committee defined this portion of the Study Area as the assessment's Focus Area. The Committee continues to conduct the Regional Assessment (i.e., present information on existing conditions and consider potential impacts of OSW) within the Focus Area. The Committee's decision to define the Focus Area and supporting rationale is available here: https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/document/153431 The Agreement to conduct the Regional Assessment is available here: https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/documents/p84343/147037E.pdf

Spatial Identification of locations of municipalities and local service districts in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Records of marine mammal sightings (N = 5,324) collected by ASOs and submitted to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) between 1979-2024, across three DFO regions: the Arctic, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Maritimes. Methods for initial data compilation are provided in the associated technical report "Marine mammal records collected by the at-sea observer (ASO) program in Arctic, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Maritimes regions: a summary of challenges and opportunities for future research." Cite this data as: Feyrer, L.J., Colbourne, N., Lawson, J.W., Moors-Murphy, H.B., Ferguson, S. Dataset update to Marine mammal records collected by the At-Sea Observer program in Arctic, Newfoundland and Labrador and Maritimes regions. Published: February 2025. Ocean Ecosystems Science Division, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dartmouth, N.S.

Water temperature and water level are significant environmental factors affecting ecology of anadromous fish. Large-scale freshwater monitoring networks remain sparse, yet environmental protocols rely heavily on water temperature and water levels to assist decision making on river closures. Our river monitoring project in Newfoundland and Labrador provides river water temperature and river water level for salmon rivers across the province. 72 temperature loggers are deployed across 24 river systems in Newfoundland and Labrador. Temperature loggers are deployed in approximately 30 cm of water and remain in river year-round. Loggers consist of Onset level loggers, tidbit loggers, and pendants or Innovasea minilogs. Some loggers are deployed in duplicate at locations to provide data redundancy in event of equipment loss or failure. Equipment is monitored throughout the season to ensure proper placement in water columns, with downloads taking place during monitoring trips.

This layer comprises all the available water wells in GIN (Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador) and published through the open data platforms. This layer is a combination of all individual provincial and territorial layers. The original databases are dynamically converted by an automatic process managed by Natural Resources Canada (Groundwater Information Network).

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), in partnership with other government organizations, indigenous groups, and community stakeholders, monitor the migratory return of Atlantic salmon to rivers each season. In Newfoundland and Labrador, there are 15 management areas, known as Salmon Fishing Areas (SFAs), with over 400 rivers containing populations of spawning salmon. Each year, salmon populations are enumerated at monitoring facilities (counting fences or fishways) on several rivers throughout the province. Monitoring begins in April or May for the downstream smolt run and in June or July for the upstream adult run and varies in timing by year and river. Not all rivers are monitored annually and years with incomplete data are often attributable to environmental factors that delay or stop monitoring during a season (e.g. fence washout due to elevated water levels). Days with zero counts can be attributable to no fish and/or closures to the monitoring facility. While monitoring facilities are used primarily to count Atlantic salmon, other freshwater fish may also be enumerated if encountered. The counts from these monitoring facilities, in addition to angling information and other monitoring activities, provide information for estimating returns for the annual stock assessment, which is an important part of conservation and management of Atlantic salmon populations in Newfoundland and Labrador. This data contains information for Atlantic salmon only.

The Science Branch of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) region has been conducting multispecies research vessel (RV) surveys using a stratified random survey design since the early 1970s. The DFO RV survey dataset represents the longest time series of species data in the NL region, making it ideal for mapping the average relative densities of species over time. Average relative density maps depict the interpolated densities (calculated from kg/tow) of fish species or functional groups. These densities are averaged over each time series (Engel and Campelen) and include data from all available seasons, so they represent persistent areas of relatively high and low densities for that species or functional group for the duration of the time series, independent of season. These maps are well suited as decision support tools related to conservation areas and marine spatial planning. These maps can also inform other processes that require information on areas important to marine fish, such as environmental assessments. Spring, fall, and winter data from the DFO RV survey between 1981 and 2017, inclusive, were used for the analysis. Due to a gear change from an Engel 145 Hi-Lift Otter Trawl to a Campelen 1800 Shrimp Trawl in 1995, the time series is treated as two separate datasets. NAFO Divisions 2J3KLNOP were sampled during the Engel time series and Division 2H was added for the Campelen time series. The data were filtered prior to use so that only core strata (areas consistently sampled across years) were included, resulting in most deep water and inshore sets being excluded in this analysis. Weight per tow (kg/tow; standardized for tow length for each gear type) data for fish, shrimp, and crab species were extracted from the database, and all successful sets from regular multispecies surveys were used for analyses. Eight fish functional groups (groups of species of similar size and diet) were identified based on the RV survey dataset: small benthivores, medium benthivores, large benthivores, piscivores, plank-piscivores, planktivores, shrimp, and forage fish. Data for each functional group were mapped three ways: all species, dominant species (i.e. top 90% biomass), and non-dominant species. In total, 40 dominant species and/or at-risk species (i.e. COSEWIC endangered, threatened, special concern; SARA; DFO/NAFO depleted) were mapped individually. To identify the average relative density, independent of seasonality, the spring, fall, and winter survey sets were compiled into a composite dataset using a log transformation on the biomass (kg/tow). For functional groups, these values were then standardized across each group. Absences (0 kg/tow catch values) were included. A continuous raster with a 4x4km resolution was generated through ordinary kriging. The raster was clipped to an 8-km buffer of the RV survey extent and the zero values were then removed. The results of this process are maps depicting the average relative density of fish functional groups and selected individual species during both the Engel (1981-1995) and Campelen (1995-2017) time series. Note that the original units (e.g. kg/tow) are no longer relevant due to data processing. Cell values are not comparable between groups or species; when mapping, all numeric values should be removed from the labels and legend, with relative qualifiers (“high” and “low”) used instead. More detailed information can be found in Wells et al. (2021). References: Wells, N.J., Pretty, C., Warren, M., Novaczek, E. and Koen-Alonso, M. 2021. Average Relative Density of Fish Species and Functional Groups in the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves Bioregion from 1981-2017. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 3427: viii + 76 p.