Northern Canada Shoreline Classification

This dataset is part of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Shoreline Classification and Pre-Spill database and it covers various locations across the Canadian Arctic i.e. James Bay, Resolute Bay and the south coast of Devon Island, the south-west coast of Hudson Bay, Labrador Coast, Victoria Strait, Beaufort Sea, and the North-east coast of Baffin Island. Shoreline classification data has been developed for use by the Environmental Emergencies Program of Environment and Climate Change Canada for environmental protection purposes. Marine and freshwater shorelines are classified according to the character of the upper intertidal (foreshore) or upper swash zone. This is the area where oil from a spill usually becomes stranded and where the treatment or cleanup activities take place. The basic parameter that defines the shoreline type is the material that is present in the intertidal zone. The presence or absence of sediments is a key factor in determining whether oil is stranded on the surface of a substrate or can penetrate and/or be buried. This dataset contains thousands of linear shoreline segments ranging in length from 200 m and 2 km long. The entities represent the location of the segments and their geomorphological description.

There exist further fields in the attribute table for this dataset. We are currently working on standardizing our shoreline segmentation datasets and the updated data will soon be uploaded to the catalog.

Sergy, G. (2008). The Shoreline Classification Scheme for SCAT and Oil Spill Response in Canada. Proceedings of the 31stArctic and Marine Oil Spill Program Technical Seminar.Environment Canada, Ottawa, ON, Pp. 811-819.