This data publication contains an optimized mosaic of PALSAR-2 L-band dual-polarized radar backscatter summer composite for the year 2020 across Canada (excluding the Arctic Archipelago). Its primary purpose is to offer the best possible L-band radar summer-like composite mosaic mostly tailored for i) classifying natural treed or shrubby vegetation covers, and ii) estimating their structural attributes, such as height and biomass. ## Methodology:This product is based on the freely available and open dataset of yearly JAXA Global PALSAR-2/PALSAR Mosaics ver. 1 (hereafter JAXA GPM v1). They were generated by the Japanese space agency (JAXA) using PALSAR L-band synthetic aperture radar sensors aboard the Advanced Land Observing Satellites (ALOS): ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 (2015 to 2020) and ALOS PALSAR (2007 to 2010). JAXA GPM v1 provide yearly mosaics orthorectified and slope-corrected L-band HH- and HV-polarized gamma naught (γ°) backscatter amplitude with 25-m pixel size and scaled as 16-bit data (Shimada et al. 2014). JAXA GPM v1 are accessible as a Google Earth Engine image collection at https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/catalog/JAXA_ALOS_PALSAR_YEARLY_SAR.The yearly 2007 to 2020 JAXA GPM v1 dataset across Canada underwent a post-processing and compositing methodology implemented in Google Earth Engine, as detailed in Pontone et al. 2024 and summarized in a pdf “Readme” file provided with the dataset. In summary, the method involves these three steps: 1. Post-processing of yearly γ° HH and HV datasets: handling data gaps, filtering speckle noise, and generating two radar vegetation indices, the HV/HH ratio (HVHH) and the radar forest degradation index (RFDI).2. Temporal compositing from 2015 to 2020 of post-processed yearly γ° PALSAR-2 HH, HV, HVHH, and RFDI backscatter data aimed to i) address data gaps and ii) mitigate detrimental backscatter fluctuations across ALOS-2 orbits resulting from numerous out-of-summer acquisitions.3. Generating the final PALSAR-2 L-band γ° radar backscatter summer composite circa 2020 raster files. ## Performance et limitations:The resulting Canada-wide, excluding the Arctic Archipelago, gap-free and radiometrically optimized mosaic of circa 2020 PALSAR-2 L-band backscatter summer composite was found significantly improved compared to the single-year 2020 JAXA GPM v1 mosaic, particularly in northern boreal Canada (Pontone et al. 2024). However, this product should be considered as a summer-like composite and users should be mindful of the following known limitations: • In northwestern Canada, there were often minimal to no summer PALSAR-2 acquisitions, resulting in residual backscatter fluctuations across ALOS-2 orbits.• The composite may exhibit patchy radiometric noise in areas that experienced major disturbances (fires, harvesting) between 2015 and 2020 despite they were accounted for in our compositing methodology.• This product is deemed less performant, or possibly not suitable, for i) characterizing highly dynamic land cover types such as grasslands, croplands, and water bodies, or for ii) estimating soil and/or vegetation moisture content for the year 2020.As a final note, JAXA released an improved GPM ver. 2 that was not available at the time of this study. A preliminary analysis shows that the circa 2020 PALSAR-2 composite product still seems to outperform the 2020 JAXA GPM v2 in northern Canada. ## Additional Information on Dataset: This dataset comprises four raster geotiff files of circa 2020 L-band PALSAR-2 summer temporal composites as mosaics of orthorectified and radiometrically slope corrected dual-polarized HH and HV gamma naught (γ°) backscatter amplitude, along with two radar vegetation indices (HVHH, RFDI), all scaled as 16-bit Digital Number (DN) values with 30-m pixel size in Lambert conformal conic projection. An additional 8-bit RGB quick-view file is also provided. A companion pdf ”Readme” file provides further details about these geotiff files and equations to convert DN values to γ° absolute intensity values. ## Dataset Citation: Beaudoin, A., Villemaire, P., Gignac, C., Tolszczuk, S., Guindon, L., Pontone, N., Millard, C. (2024). Canada’s PALSAR-2 dual-polarized L-band radar summer backscatter composite, circa 2020. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Laurentian Forestry Centre, Quebec, Canada. https://doi.org/10.23687/8ec4ee78-9240-4bd0-9c97-d3a27829e209In addition, please provide credits to the Japanese space agency JAXA with the mention “Original Global PALSAR-2/PALSAR Mosaics v1 provided by JAXA (©JAXA)” ## Publication Reference for Product Development and Use in Wetland Mapping: Pontone, N., Millard, K., Thompson, D., Guindon, L., Beaudoin, A. (2024). A hierarchical, Multi-Sensor Framework for Peatland Sub-Class and Vegetation Mapping Throughout the Canadian Boreal Forest. Remote Sensing for Ecology and Conservation (accepted for publication).## Cited reference: Shimada, M., Itoh, T., Motooka, T., Watanabe, M., Tomohiro, S., Thapa, T., Lucas, R. (2014). New Global Forest/Non-Forest Maps from ALOS PALSAR Data (2007-2010). Remote Sensing of Environment, 155, pp. 13-31. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.rse.2014.04.014

The third generation of high resolution 10-m wetland inventory map of Canada, covering an approximate area of one billion hectares, was generated using multi-year (2016-2020), multi-source imagery (Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, ALOS PALSAR-2, and SRTM) Earth Observation (EO) data as well as environmental features. Over 8800 wetland polygons were processed within an object-based random forest classification scheme on the Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform. The average overall accuracy of 90.5% is an increase of 4.7% over CWIM2.CWIM Versions:The Canadian Wetland Inventory Map (CWIM) is an extension of work started at Memorial University to produce a Newfoundland and Labrador wetland inventory during 2015-2018 which was significantly funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The first national CWIM was produced 2018-2019 as a collaboration between Memorial University, C-CORE, and Natural Resources Canada. Dr. Brian Brisco was instrumental in connecting ground truth from multiple sources to the project and providing guidance. Version 2 was produced in 2020 which included more training data and processing by Canada’s ecozones rather than provinces to take advantage of the commonality of landscape ecological features within ecozones to improve the accuracy. Version 3 produced in 2021 continued adding more data sources to further improve accuracy specifically an overestimation of wetland area as well as introducing a confidence map. Version 3A completed in 2022 updates only the arctic ecozones due to their relatively lower accuracy and added hydro-physiographic data layers. Currently work is underway to create a northern circumpolar wetland inventory map to be published in 2025.Paper on Newfoundland and Labrador Wetland Inventory:Mahdianpari, M.; Salehi, B.; Mohammadimanesh, F.; Homayouni, S.; Gill, E. The First Wetland Inventory Map of Newfoundland at a Spatial Resolution of 10 m Using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Data on the Google Earth Engine Cloud Computing Platform. Remote Sens. 2019, 11, 43. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11010043Paper on CWIM1:Mahdianpari, M., Salehi, B., Mohammadimanesh, F., Brisco, B., Homayouni, S., Gill, E., … Bourgeau-Chavez, L. (2020). Big Data for a Big Country: The First Generation of Canadian Wetland Inventory Map at a Spatial Resolution of 10-m Using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Data on the Google Earth Engine Cloud Computing Platform. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, 46(1), 15–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/07038992.2019.1711366Paper on CWIM2:Mahdianpari, M., Brisco, B., Granger, J. E., Mohammadimanesh, F., Salehi, B., Banks, S., … Weng, Q. (2020). The Second Generation Canadian Wetland Inventory Map at 10 Meters Resolution Using Google Earth Engine. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, 46(3), 360–375. https://doi.org/10.1080/07038992.2020.1802584Paper on CWIM3:M. Mahdianpari et al., "The Third Generation of Pan-Canadian Wetland Map at 10 m Resolution Using Multisource Earth Observation Data on Cloud Computing Platform," in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 14, pp. 8789-8803, 2021, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2021.3105645.Paper on Arctic ecoregion enhancement for CWIM3A:Michael Merchant, et al., ”Leveraging google earth engine cloud computing for large-scale arctic wetland mapping,” in International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, vol. 125, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2023.103589.

Buildings located on the territory of the City of Sherbrooke and belonging to one of the following categories: business, hospital, school or municipal building. These categories are respectively associated with subtype codes 2, 3, 4, and 5 attributes:ID - Unique IdentifierSubtype - Building Subtype Code (2 - Business, 3 - Hospital, 4 - Hospital, 4 - School, 4 - School, 5 - Municipal Building)**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

This dataset presents the first comprehensive, high-resolution (10-meter) wetland inventory map covering the entire 32.2 million square kilometers of the Pan-Arctic region, of which 14 million square kilometers (43%) is terrestrial and 18.4 million square kilometers (57%) is marine. Generated through advanced Earth Observation and machine learning techniques, the map was produced using multi-year (2020–2022), multi-source satellite imagery—including Sentinel‑1, Sentinel‑2, and ALOS PALSAR‑2—as well as various environmental features such as elevation. Over 1,000 wetland polygons were analyzed using an object-based random forest classification workflow on the Google Earth Engine cloud platform, achieving an average overall classification accuracy of 89%.The mapping extent was defined according to the Arctic Council’s Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) boundary, resulting in the identification of 2,947,618 km² of wetlands, representing 20% of the land area within the Pan-Arctic region. This dataset establishes a consistent and authoritative baseline for pan-Arctic wetlands, leveraging the latest advances in Earth Observation, machine learning, and cloud computing. The Canadian Wetland Classification System was used and includes the major wetland classes: bog, fen, marsh, swamp, and water.The overall wetlands coverage by country within the CAFF boundary was: Canada (27%), United States of America (i.e., Alaska 39%), Finland (31%), Iceland (8%), Norway (17%), Sweden (26%), Kingdom of Denmark (i.e., Greenland 1%), and the Russian Federation (21%).​Development of this product was undertaken by Natural Resource Canada's Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation and the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure Division in collaboration with the Arctic Council’s CAFF biodiversity group, CAFF Wetland Experts Group, national organisations mandated to monitor wetlands, and Arctic National Mapping Agencies, and Canadian company C-CORE, integrating ground truth data collected from Alaska, Finland, Sweden, and the Kingdom of Denmark through partner agencies and digital image interpretation. More than 60,000 images (2020-2022), primarily covering summer periods, were processed to ensure robust results.This dataset provides essential baseline information for Earth Observation monitoring of climate change impacts and supports critical environmental surveillance for Arctic and remote northern communities.

Contains 2 datasets: * lower and single tier municipalities * upper tier municipalities and districts.

TA_LAND_DISTRICTS_SVW contains the spatial representation (polygon) of the current extent of the administrative areas defined under Section 2 of the Land Act as Land Districts. The was created to provide a simplified view of this data from the administrative boundaries information in the Tantalis operational system. These administrative regions are defined under Section 2 of the Land Act for the purpose of managing and uniquely identifying cadastral survey parcels

Features in the Hydrology - Line layer are representations of creeks, streams, and rivers for the City of Whitehorse.Data was modeled using the NENA NG9-1-1 GIS Data Template (NENA-REF-006. 2 -202 2 ).Distributed from [GeoYukon](https://yukon.ca/geoyukon) by the [Government of Yukon](https://yukon.ca/maps) . Discover more digital map data and interactive maps from Yukon's digital map data collection.For more information: [geomatics.help@yukon.ca](mailto:geomatics.help@yukon.ca)

The locations of the 2 specialty crop areas in the Greenbelt Plan: * the Holland Marsh * Niagara Peninsula Tender Fruit and Grape Lands

Fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR) quantified the absorbed by green foliage. fAPAR has been identified by the Global Climate Observing System as an essential climate variable required for ecosystem, weather and climate modelling and monitoring. This product consists of a national scale coverage (Canada) of monthly maps of fAPAR during a growing season (May-June-July-August-September) at 20m resolution.References:L. Brown, R. Fernandes, N. Djamai, C. Meier, N. Gobron, H. Morris, C. Canisius, G. Bai, C. Lerebourg, C. Lanconelli, M. Clerici, J. Dash. Validation of baseline and modified Sentinel-2 Level 2 Prototype Processor leaf area index retrievals over the United States IISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens., 175 (2021), pp. 71-87, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2021.02.020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924271621000617Richard Fernandes, Luke Brown, Francis Canisius, Jadu Dash, Liming He, Gang Hong, Lucy Huang, Nhu Quynh Le, Camryn MacDougall, Courtney Meier, Patrick Osei Darko, Hemit Shah, Lynsay Spafford, Lixin Sun, 2023.Validation of Simplified Level 2 Prototype Processor Sentinel-2 fraction of canopy cover, fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation and leaf area index products over North American forests,Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 293, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2023.113600.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425723001517

The Roads layer delineates the estimated centreline of the roads within the City of Whitehorse.Data was modeled using the NENA NG9-1-1 GIS Data Template (NENA-REF-006. 2 -202 2 ).Distributed from [GeoYukon](https://yukon.ca/geoyukon) by the [Government of Yukon](https://yukon.ca/maps) . Discover more digital map data and interactive maps from Yukon's digital map data collection.For more information: [geomatics.help@yukon.ca](mailto:geomatics.help@yukon.ca)