Forest Cover

Provide forest data at the level required for Ministry of Natural Resources business activities, specifically but not limited to Forest Management Planning. Note regarding using Forest Cover information: 1) The information consists of primarily interpretations of aerial-imagery supported by trained observation and field sample data. 2) Applying artificial growth projections to forests, either under the age of 7 years old, or projecting growth beyond 7 years of the inventorys effective date may produce inconsistent and/or unexpected results. 3) Growing previously grown data by applying growth algorithms more then once may produce inconsistent and/or unexpected results. 4) The tabular data is designed for evaluating forest growth and types that cover large geographic areas Regulated by the Forest Resources Inventory (FRI) Technical Specifications of the Forest Information Manual (FIM) legislation.

Identifies and describes the forested area in the province of Ontario within the Forest Management Area of the Undertaking and the confines of the Northern Boreal Initiative. Forested areas may either be currently forested or managed as future-forests. These areas may be described with various measurement values, observations, and development-stage data. The level of detail in which a forest is described will vary according to local need. Relevant *legislation associated and identified by the Forest Information Manual (FIM) dictates minimum content and vintage of data within the Area of the Undertaking and the Northern Boreal Initiative. There are no inventories planned for Southern Ontario or the very far North. Water is delineated but not described. Non-forested areas such as rock, muskeg, developed agricultural land, etc. are identified but are only described with ecosite codes

Note: For the purposes of brevity, references to the FIM Forest Resources Inventory Technical Specifications have been shortened in field descriptions to FRI Tech Spec.

*Includes the Crown Forest Sustainability Act (1995), Class Environmental Assessment for Timber Management on Crown Land (Timber EA)

Additional Documentation

• Forest Cover - Data Description (PDF)
• Forest Cover - Documentation (Word)

Status
On going: data is being continually updated

Maintenance and Update Frequency
As needed: data is updated as deemed necessary

Contact
Ken Smith, [email protected]

The data referenced here is licensed Electronic Intellectual Property of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and is provided for professional, non-commercial use only.

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• FRI
• Forest Information...
• Forest Resource Inventory
• MNR
• Ministry of...
• Natural Resources
• ODCSYNC
• RUL
• Science and Research Branch
• forestry
• planning and cadastral
• plants and animals

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (62%)
• Maturity Level 2 (69%)
• Maturity Level 3 (44%)
• Maturity Level 4 (10%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	March 24, 2026, 20:43 (UTC)
Created	March 24, 2026, 20:43 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title Title for the Dataset.	Forest Cover
Description A description of the dataset.	Provide forest data at the level required for Ministry of Natural Resources business activities, specifically but not limited to Forest Management Planning. Note regarding using Forest Cover information: 1) The information consists of primarily interpretations of aerial-imagery supported by trained observation and field sample data. 2) Applying artificial growth projections to forests, either under the age of 7 years old, or projecting growth beyond 7 years of the inventorys effective date may produce inconsistent and/or unexpected results. 3) Growing previously grown data by applying growth algorithms more then once may produce inconsistent and/or unexpected results. 4) The tabular data is designed for evaluating forest growth and types that cover large geographic areas Regulated by the Forest Resources Inventory (FRI) Technical Specifications of the Forest Information Manual (FIM) legislation. Identifies and describes the forested area in the province of Ontario within the Forest Management Area of the Undertaking and the confines of the Northern Boreal Initiative. Forested areas may either be currently forested or managed as future-forests. These areas may be described with various measurement values, observations, and development-stage data. The level of detail in which a forest is described will vary according to local need. Relevant *legislation associated and identified by the Forest Information Manual (FIM) dictates minimum content and vintage of data within the Area of the Undertaking and the Northern Boreal Initiative. There are no inventories planned for Southern Ontario or the very far North. Water is delineated but not described. Non-forested areas such as rock, muskeg, developed agricultural land, etc. are identified but are only described with ecosite codes Note: For the purposes of brevity, references to the FIM Forest Resources Inventory Technical Specifications have been shortened in field descriptions to FRI Tech Spec. *Includes the Crown Forest Sustainability Act (1995), Class Environmental Assessment for Timber Management on Crown Land (Timber EA) Additional Documentation Forest Cover - Data Description (PDF) Forest Cover - Documentation (Word) Status On going: data is being continually updated Maintenance and Update Frequency As needed: data is updated as deemed necessary Contact Ken Smith, [email protected] The data referenced here is licensed Electronic Intellectual Property of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and is provided for professional, non-commercial use only.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	FRI Forest Information... Forest Resource Inventory MNR Ministry of... Natural Resources ODCSYNC RUL Science and Research Branch forestry planning and cadastral plants and animals
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.	0.08
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry	bc59ce55caa0407cb913f781dcdd99bf
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2019-03-05
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).	public
License License used to access the dataset.	Electronic Intellectual Property - Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://ontariogeohub-lio.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/lio::forest-cover
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	LandInformationOntario
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Land Information Ontario
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?	[email protected]
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.	Land Information Ontario
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.
Author Author of the dataset.	LandInformationOntario
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.	2025-11-27

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.	bc59ce55caa0407cb913f781dcdd99bf
Language Language(s) of the dataset	English
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.	https://ontariogeohub-lio.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/lio::forest-cover
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.	Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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