Soil Landscapes of Canada

Soil Landscapes of Canada version 3.x (SLC v3.x) polygons are the most detailed spatial entities within the ecological hierarchy employed in Canada. The hierarchy is as follows: Ecozones->Ecoprovinces->Ecoregions->Ecodistricts->Soil Landscapes of Canada. The current "Version 1.0" of the Ecological Stratification for Canada was published in 1995, and is exactly nested with the SLCv2.2 coverage for all of Canada. Exact nesting means that a combination of adjoining SLCv2.2 polygons defines each Ecodistrict, and these in turn define the terrestrial Ecoregions and Ecozones within Canada. All of the above divisions are nested and exact, meaning that there is 100 % coverage, and all boundaries fit within each other.

The Soil Landscapes of Canada is an excellent ecological framework for integrating and characterizing the biological, physical, climatic and demographic dimensions of land-related information on a regional basis. A common national framework for base maps, soil landscape maps and ecological stratification maps will allow better integration of future environmental modeling and assessment activities at national and regional scales.

Although there are both provincial and national coverages, the SLCv3.x component information is for the agricultural areas of Canada only. An exception to note is that some provinces (i.e. AB, NS, and PEI) contain CMP, SNF and SLF data for the entire province (i.e. beyond the agricultural areas).

For SLC version 3.1.1, no changes were made to the line-work.