Hamilton

The GeoConnections Discovery Portal provides an infrastructure through which one can search and access geospatial data from many organizations.  The directory contains over 9000 databases from over 600 organizations.  These databases can be searched by data format , geographic extent, and type of geography.  Not all data sources in the directory can be accessed for free, but the queries can be filtered such that only free sources are shown.  Please be aware that some free resources, such as GeoBase, require you to make an account before you can access data.  Although this directory contains data at a global extent, it is a Canada-centric website, and therefore many databases will portray Canadian information.

The following topics and sub-topics are available filters for the geospatial data search:

Atmosphere/Weather: Current weather and forecasts, General climate data, Weather disasters, Winds

Geology: Earthquakes

Land Surface: Agriculture, Forestry, Land use, Snow, Soil, Topography, Vegetation

Water: Freshwater, Hydrogeology, Lake ice, Oceans, Sea ice

This file represents detailed coverage of water features across Canada. CanMap Water is developed from a combination of National Topographic Data Base (NTDB) 1:50,000 and 1:250,000 scale hydrographic mapping data. Lakes, rivers, streams, ponds are included.

Attributes associated with this data: flooded area, irrigation canal, water obstacles, disappearing stream, slough.

Available to Canadian universities under DMTI Spatial SMART Consortium agreement (http://prod.library.utoronto.ca:8090/maplib/DMTI/).  The earliest version of this data available through McMaster University Library is 2002. Annual updates are received in October or November of every year, so a version is available for each year after 2002.

The OGDE Fundamental Dataset includes various GIS coverages for the entire province of Ontario, including all the features taken from the original Ontario Base Map topographic map series. The OGDE Fundamental Data is delivered in seamless files, for large areas of the province (MNR Regions and Districts). If you want seamless data for large areas, request OGDE Fundamental Data. If you want digital tiles that correspond to the original Ontario Base Map boundaries, request OBM Data instead.

Data classes are provided at one of three levels of geography.  A data class could cover the entire province, be broken down by the 3 MNR regions (Northwest, Northeast, and Southcentral Ontario), or be broken down by the 26 MNR districts.  The sample image shown above displays a sample layer from each level of geography (Railway at the provincial level, wetland units at the regional level, and water edge at the district level).  Below is a list of all available data classes and the corresponding levels of geography.

Provincial Level: Airport, Concession, Conservation Area, Conservation Authority Area, Conservation Authority Region, Crown game Preserve, Crown Leased Land, Geographic Township, Land Ownership, Lot, Mine Site, Miscellaneous Point, MNR District, MNR Region, Municipal Lower Tier, Municipal Park, Municipal Upper Tier, National Park, National Wildlife Area, NGO Nature Reserve, OBM Index, Pit or Quarry, Provincial Park Regulated, Provincial Park Zone Regulated, Railway Segment, Tank, Tower, Unorganized Area Utility Line, Utility Site, Water Structure

MNR Region Level: Drainage Line, Drainage Point, Trail Segment, Transport Line, Transport Point, Wetland Unit.

Index showing MNR Regions appears at http://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/images/mnr_reg.jpg

MNR District Level: Annotation, Building as Symbol, Building to Scale, Contour, Miscellaneous Line, OBM DTM, Road Segment, SPOT Height, Water Edge, Waterbody Segment, Wooded Area.

Index showing MNR Districts appears at http://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/images/mnr_dist.jpg

The Water Survey of Canada is a branch of Environment Canada which provides comprehensive flow or surface water level data for rivers across Canada.  For each hydrometric station, one can query daily or monthly flow or water level rates for the years that the station was active.  Some stations only have records for a few years, while others have records for over 80 consecutive years.  Some stations also have records for sediment loads and concentrations.

The data are not provided in any geospatial format, but there is an interactive Google Map interface which shows the location of currently active stations.  The metadata document also contains the latitude-longitude coordinates for each station.  The data can be viewed in an graphical format, which can calculate basic statistics about the data range (e.g. calculate the mean flow rate of a river over the course of a whole year).  The data can be viewed tabular format in the web browser, and can also be exported in .csv format, which can be exported into Microsoft Excel.

Data provided by Ontario Geospatial Data Exchange (OGDE).  Data are available in 1 km tiles.

Coverage for this product includes areas within the Regions of Durham York, Peel & Halton, the City of Toronto, Golden Horseshoe, Niagara Peninsula and the City of Hamilton: This includes Ajax, Aurora, Brampton, Brock, Burlington, Caledon, Clarington, Etobicoke, Georgina, Grimsby, Gwillimbury, Halton Hills, Hamilton, King, Markham, Milton, Mississauga, Newmarket, Niagara Falls, Oakville, Oshawa, Pickering, Richmond Hill, St. Catharines, Scarborough, Scugog, Stouffville, City of Toronto, York, East York, North York, Uxbridge, Vaughan and Whitby.

An index to images available is provided at http://www.brocku.ca/maplibrary/procedures/ortho2002_index/golden_horseshoe_index2.htm (courtesy of Brock University Map Library). To request these images, please record the numbers of the tiles you need.

Daily climate data for 43,486 stations worldwide, covering the time period 1833 to 2008.

Includes information about precipition (in millimetres), snowfall (in millimetres), snow depth (in millimetres), maximum temperature (in degrees C), minimum temperature (in degrees C) and temperature at time of observation (in degrees C).

Data available varies for different countries, stations and years. Number of stations per country is also variable, with more data available for the United States than for other countries.

Data source = United States National Climatic Data Center, Global Historical Climatology Network. This product was purchased as a 12 CD-ROM set from EarthInfo Inc (http://www.earthinfo.com/databases/gd.htm)

Tabular data can be extracted from CDs using vendor-supplied access software in ASCII, Binary, DBASE and Lotus formats.

The National Hydro Network (NHN), for which the standard was officially adopted by the Canadian Council on Geomatics (CCOG) in August 2004, focuses on providing a quality geometric description and a set of basic attributes describing Canada's inland surface waters. It provides geospatial vector data describing hydrographic features such as lakes, reservoirs, rivers, streams, canals, islands, obstacles (e.g. waterfalls, rapids, rocks in water) and constructions (e.g. dams, wharves, dikes), as well as a linear drainage network and the toponymic information (geographical names) associated to hydrography.

The NHN forms the hydrographic layer of the GeoBase. The best available federal and provincial/territorial data are used for its production, which is done jointly by the federal government and interested provincial and territorial partners.

The modeling work of the NHN is based in part on Linear referencing System (LRS) concepts. This approach allows the management of geometric representations separately from attribute information (referred to as events in LRS). Unique identifiers (called National Identifiers - NID), associated to each NHN feature, allow for efficient management of updates. The NHN is a vector, topographic data product primarily designed to allow hydrographic network analysis. It is intented for water flow analysis, water and watershed management, environmental and hydrographical applications, as well as for a multitude of cartographic applications.

The Ontario Wind Resource Atlas is provided by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources for the purpose of identifying ideal locations for wind energy development.

This interactive map provides complete coverage of the Province of Ontario for wind speed and wind power at 10, 30, 50, 80 and 100m above ground level.  "Wind Information Data" can be browsed for each pixel, showing the following data: average wind speed and power at five heights, wind rose and wind speed distribution at 30m and 80m, graphs of daily, monthly and annual variation in avergae wind speed at 30m and 80m, and a "Turbine Formula", which can be used to predict the theoretical output of a turbine at that location.

The map also has the following supplementary layers: Climate Monitoring Stations, Landuse (including Provincial Parks, Conservation Reserves, Natural Heritage Values Areas, Enhanced Management Areas, National Parks, ANSI's, Wilderness Areas, Crown Game Reserves, and Land Ownership), Administrative Boundaries (Including Province, MNR District, Wildlife Management Units, Upper Tier Municipalities and Lower Tier Municipalities), Water, Roads, Powerlines, Railways, Populated Places, and Important Bird Areas.

Please note that no geospatial data are available for download from this website.

These images were flown in summer 1995 and provided by the Ontario Geographic Data Exchange (OGDE).  Images are available in 3km x 5km tiles.  The index for these images is available (courtesy of the University of Waterloo Map Library) at the following link: http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/locations/umd/digital/gta_tiffindex.html  To request these images, please record the ID numbers for the tiles you need.

From the SOLRIS Accuracy Assessment Report: "Southern Ontario Land Resource Information System (SOLRIS) is a comprehensive landscape scale inventory of southern Ontario's natural, rural and urban areas.  SOLRIS is a response to regional information requirements and the planning level for provincial initiatives such as Source Water Protection and Natural Spaces". 

SOLRIS was initially developed by the MNR's Science and Information Branch (SIB) in partnership with Ducks Unlimited, but ultimately involved partnership with several other agencies.  The final version of SOLRIS (v1.2) is made available through the Ontario Geographic Data Exchange (OGDE) as part of the Land Information Ontario (LIO) data warehouse.

SOLRIS was created by intergrating geospatial databases of forests and wetlands with topographic maps, aerial photos and satellite imagery for seamless coverage of Ecoregions 6E and 7E.  The resulting inventory divides the Southern Ontario landscape according to the Ecological Land Classification (ELC) described in Lee et al., 1998.  These classifications include: Open Cliff and Talus, Alvar, Shoreline, Open Shoreline, Sand Barren and Dune (Open and Treed),  Open Tallgrass Prairie, Tallgrass Savannah, Tallgrass Woodland, Forest, Coniferous Forest, Mixed Forest, Deciduous Forest, Plantations, Hedgerows, Transportation, Extraction, Built-up Area (Pervious and Impervious), Swamp, Fen, Bog, Marsh, and Open Water. Please note that there are large tracts of land which are classified as "Undifferentiated".

Two versions are available.  Version 1.1 covers a smaller geographic extent (primarily the Golden Horsehoe area), but has much less area classified as undifferentiated.  Version 1.2 is the "final" version, with full coverage of southern Ontario.  Data are available in ESRI GRID raster format and ESRI shapefile vector format in both versions.