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Modern Access to Canada Lands Mapping
Acknowledging an essential Canadian mapping product and enhancing community access to it.
Canada’s land management information system is the very foundation of our economy and society. Cadastral Mapping (often referred to as "parcel mapping") constitutes the spatial framework for land management activities in Canada. This mapping resides in many independent systems spread over 10 provinces, three territories, the federal government, and hundreds of municipalities. Together, these independent parcel mapping products constitute the essential spatial framework for Canada's land management information infrastructure.
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) maintains " Canada Lands Digital Cadastral Data ", which covers:
- Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut
- Over 2600 Indian Reserves
- Canada's National and Historic Parks
The Canada Lands parcel mapping data NRCan maintains extends across many geographic regions across Canada.
Every day, across Canada, a broad range of organizations including municipalities, utilities, provincial and federal agencies, first nations, resource companies, emergency management organizations and many others, need efficient access to up-to-date Canada Lands parcel mapping. This mapping is used in conjunction with other mapping data sets such as provincial parcel mapping, imagery, and key operational data sets.
In this StoryMap, we explore the Canada Lands parcel mapping data maintained by NRCan in more detail, as well as review the steps that have recently been taken by Esri Canada to make this valuable data more readily accessible to the GIS community.
The importance of Canada Lands parcel mapping
Recently, a multi-participant working group in BC called the " ParcelMap BC Adoption Working Group " identified access to Canada Lands parcel mapping as one of the top three data dependencies impacting their adoption of provincial parcel mapping. Across the country, Canadians expect efficient access to seamless, up-to-date, parcel mapping and this expectation demands that provincial and federal parcel mapping data sets are compatible and seamlessly accessed by Canadians.
Canada Lands parcel mapping (depicted here in the Community Property Map of Canada ) is an essential Canadian mapping product.
Canada Lands parcel mapping is a significant achievement by NRCan and constitutes a major contribution to Canada's overall land information infrastructure. Canada Lands parcel mapping is continuously maintained by NRCan using modern parcel mapping techniques. Canada Lands parcel mapping data is also made available under the Open Government License - Canada . This means that all Canadians can benefit from using this valuable product in an unrestricted manner.
The Canada Lands parcel mapping data maintained by NRCan offers attribution that provides valuable content for each of the parcel boundaries. This includes information such as:
- A parcel identifier with direct links to the Electronic Registry Index Plan
- A survey plan number with direct links to the survey plan details
- The parcel designator
- The status of the parcel (active or retired)
- The reserve name with direct links to the reserve/settlement/village profile
- Access to the Parcel Abstract Report provided in the Indian Lands Registry System
Accessing the Canada Lands parcel mapping service
In an effort to make the Canada Lands parcel mapping data more readily accessible to the larger GIS community, Esri Canada's Land Information Solutions team has created a feature service that provides seamless, up-to-date, national coverage of this mapping.
Using a variety of scripts and tools, Esri Canada aggregates the thousands of shapefiles that comprise the Canada Lands parcel mapping data into a single, seamless, national geodatabase. This geodatabase is then published as a public, hosted feature service to ArcGIS Online. This hosted feature service contains all of the attribution maintained by NRCan and is updated weekly.
The 'Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data' feature service is public and hosted in ArcGIS Online.
The 'Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data' feature service can be accessed in a variety of different ways:
In ArcGIS Online:
- Open a web map
- Click on Add> Search for layers
- Choose 'ArcGIS Online' in the content option drop down
- Type 'Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data' in the search window
- Add the Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data created by user 'admin_canadacadastral'
- Since the feature service covers a large geographic extent, it is recommended you set the visible scale range
- Zoom to an area of your choice and examine the pop-ups
- Symbology, labels, and pop-ups can be configured to your liking
In the Community Property Map of Canada :
- Open the Community Property Map of Canada web mapping application
- Search for your area of interest, like a location in the territories, a national park, or a reserve
- Click on the parcel mapping data to review information specific to that parcel
- Click on the hyperlinks provided in the pop-up to explore additional information about the parcel
In the Community Map of Canada Basemap:
- Ensure the Community Map of Canada vector cache basemap is available in your ArcGIS Online organization
- Choose the Community Map of Canada as your basemap to provide rich background content to your web map
In ArcGIS Pro:
- From the Catalog window, navigate to Portal> Living Atlas
- Search for the 'Canada Lands Parcel Mapping' service and drag it into the map display
- Use the Locate tool to search for an area of interest
- Use the Explore tool to click on a parcel to view the attributes and explore the hyperlinks
In the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World:
- Search for the Canada Lands Parcel Mapping data from the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World home page
- Click on the search result to see the item description page for the Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Service
- Add the service to a map in ArcGIS Online to ArcGIS Desktop
Tools for Modern Land Management
First Nations Land Management organizations can utilize the ArcGIS Platform in conjunction with rich content like the seamless, national Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data feature service, as well as foundational basemap layers such as the Community Map of Canada to help support their basic land management needs and develop Land Management applications for their users and customers.
By using ArcGIS field operation applications like ArcGIS Field Maps, First Nations Land Management organizations can capture and return accurate field data that integrates seamlessly into ArcGIS Online .
Custom content (collected from field surveys or drones, for example), can be linked to key land management resources like survey plan repositories and registry information. By interacting with the embedded web map below, you can see how this has been done on the Canada Lands Parcel Mapping Data feature service. Use the search box to search for a location in the territories, a national park, or an Indian reserve and then click on the parcel data to access additional information from authoritative sources.
Canada Lands Parcel Mapping data with links to additional authoritative sources
Future opportunities for Canada Lands Mapping
Parcel mapping is an essential base mapping layer that is needed by many different types of organizations in the public and private sector across Canada. Land management, environmental, utility, public safety, agriculture, natural resource, cultural, economic development and many other sectors need efficient access to up-to-date parcel mapping on a daily basis.
NRCan has addressed this need and has demonstrated leadership by producing and maintaining a national parcel mapping data set that is consistent, up-to-date, and most importantly, accessible to the community under an open government license . Canada Lands Mapping is recognized as an important contribution by NRCan to Canada's mapping infrastructure.
By aggregating this valuable mapping into a uniform, national Canada Lands parcel mapping service , Esri Canada has added additional value to this important mapping asset. It will now be easier than ever for user organizations to consume up-to-date Canada Lands parcel mapping in their desktop, web, or field applications to support their daily operational requirements and make better and faster decisions. The Community Property Map of Canada is one example of a modern application that consumes Canada Lands Mapping.
Depicted in this video, the Canada Lands parcel mapping feature service has been added to a web map with other open provincial parcel mapping datasets from the provinces of Manitoba and British Columbia , allowing for more complete parcel coverage in those jurisdictions.
In the future, it is envisioned that increased usage of Canada Lands Mapping will enable continuous improvements to this mapping. Software advancements and improved access to other types of mapping data (like imagery) are making it more practical for organizations like NRCan and others make selective improvements in the spatial accuracy of their respective mapping products. This will help ensure reasonable levels of spatial compatibility with other important mapping data - such as data collected in the field to support land management, asset management and emergency management activities.
The new Canada Lands parcel mapping service can help resolve misalignments along parcel boundaries, moving Canada towards cross-jurisdiction aligned parcel mapping.
Additionally, as inter-agency collaboration becomes more feasible, it will be possible for provincial mapping organizations and NRCan to collaborate in making their respective mapping products connect and fit well with each other in a seamless fashion. These and other continuous improvements will further benefit the user community in terms of increased efficiency and better decision-support.
We hope you enjoy working with the new seamless, national Canada Lands parcel mapping service that was made possible with partnership between NRCan and Esri Canada. Should you have any questions, please contact us at: parcels@esri.ca