The “Agro-Pedological Atlas of Quebec” is a dataset that shows the characteristics, the fertility, the quality of the water regime, the vulnerability to degradation and the potential of the agricultural soils and land in the Monteregian region of the province of Quebec.

Location and identification of the 40 integrated water management zones by watershed in southern Quebec.**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

Location and identification of the 6 integrated water management zones of the St. Lawrence in southern Quebec.**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

These themes present the compilation of protected areas in Quebec. They also include important territories. Protected areas include a variety of different legal or administrative designations. Territories registered on the Register of Protected Areas and AMCEAs must meet the definitions of the Natural Heritage Conservation Act (LCPN; RLRQ, chapter C-61.01) or those of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The LCPN definition of a protected area is “A protected area is a territory, in a terrestrial or aquatic environment, geographically delimited, whose legal framework and administration are specifically aimed at ensuring the protection and maintenance of biological diversity and associated natural and cultural resources”. While IUCN defines it as “A clearly defined, recognized, recognized, dedicated and managed geographic space, by any effective legal or other means, in order to ensure the long-term conservation of nature and associated ecosystem services and cultural values.” Other effective conservation measures (ECMA), an internationally recognized concept, are areas that benefit from measures (legal, regulatory or other) to preserve biodiversity outside protected areas in the long term. Unlike a protected area, an ECMA does not necessarily have an overriding conservation objective, but still generates positive, sustainable and effective results for biodiversity. A territory of importance for conservation is a geographically delimited territory, for which the Ministry of the Environment and, of the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP) or an authority of the Government of Quebec has expressed its intention to prioritize its allocation for the purposes of protected areas.**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

'Province' and 'territory' refer to the major political units of Canada. From a statistical point of view, province and territory are basic areas for which data are tabulated. Canada is divided into 10 provinces and 3 territories. Statistics Canada uses standard codes and abbreviations to represent provinces and territories. The two-digit code that uniquely identifies each province/territory is based on the Standard Geographical Classification (SGC). The code is assigned from east to west. The first digit represents the geographical region of Canada in which the province/territory is located and the second digit denotes one of the 10 provinces and 3 territories.

The **portrait of forest cover in Québec** is an assembly made from the up-to-date ecoforest map of the inventory of southern Quebec and vegetation maps from the northern ecoforest inventory and Northern Quebec. Administrative divisions, forest boundaries and territories where forest management responsibilities and obligations are under the responsibility of the municipal environment are also added. Then, an update is carried out for areas that have a predominant use other than forest, including the road and rail network, energy transmission lines, cultivated land and built environments. The portrait makes it easy to calculate the rate of land use by forests in the territory of a municipality, an unorganized territory, an indigenous territory, an MRC or an administrative region, then to draw up a summary of some main characteristics of the forest.Annually, the portrait is reproduced with the most recent version of the data sources and then published on the Data Québec portal in December.**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

The Planning for an Environmental Response (PIER) initiative falls under the umbrella of the Government of Canada's Oceans Protection Plan (OPP), whose goal is preserving marine ecosystems vulnerable to increased transportation and the development of the marine industry (https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/backgrounders/2016/11/07/canadas-oceans-protection-plan-preserving-and-restoring-canadas). The PIER was established in response to recommendations made in a 2013 report "A review of Canada's ship-source spill preparedness and response regime " by the Tanker Safety Expert Panel (https://tc.canada.ca/en/marine-transportation/marine-safety/tanker-safety-expert-panel). One of the recommendations calls on Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to work with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) to collect and compile information on sensitive species and environments for each Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) response area and make it publicly available.The PIERs’ main mandate is to acquire and update biological sensitivity data under its jurisdiction for preparation and response purposes in the event of an oil spill. With DFO-Science, PIER supports ECCC's National Environmental Emergencies Centre (NEEC) and the CCG in their preparations and responses through the sharing of data on biological sensitivities, the development of response tools and expert advice.In this vein, DFO published an analysis in 2018 that aimed to identify the most vulnerable components of the St. Lawrence in order to prioritize them during data collection if gaps were identified (Desjardins et al. 2018). This exercise highlighted the vulnerability of several biological components and important data gaps, particularly in coastal areas. As a result of this finding, the Quebec region PIEI team embarked on a collaborative project with the Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR) to map eelgrass beds, tidal marshes and macroalgal beds. In consultation with other DFO-Science data producers, this team has also created datasets adapted for response purposes, notably regarding bivalves and marine mammals. These layers may be used for oil spill preparedness and response by DFO-Quebec Region's Environmental Incident Coordinator, NEEC and CCG. Several of them, deemed relevant in the first 72 hours following a spill, have been transmitted to the NEEC.

Multiscale hydrographic basins from levels 1 to 8 covering the whole of Quebec. These thematic layers were created using maps from the BDTQ (Quebec Topographic Database at a scale of 1:20,000) for the southern part of Quebec and using the CANVEC product (Canadian Topographic Database at scale 1:50,000) for the northern part of the province.**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

Set of fire stations in Quebec.Purpose: To identify fire stations located throughout Quebec.DISCLAIMER: This data may differ from reality in some places.**This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).**

The BC College Region Boundaries are administrative areas for Colleges within the province of BC. They are generally named for the largest university/college in the region.