Plant Community Occurrence

To record occurrences of provincially tracked plant communities that are of interest to the NHIC. Often used for by conservation practitioners and for Forest/Municipal/Land Use Planning. Species at Risk (SAR) Legislation, Planning Act, Crown Forest Sustainability Act, Draft Protection and Distribution of Provincially Tracked Species Data Policy

Features related to provincially tracked species and species at risk are not available as open data. Sensitive features are subject to licensing and approvals. Visit the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry website to get access to natural heritage information. 

A plant community is a recurring assemblage of plants, having a consistent composition and structure, which develops in association with particular combinations of substrate, site moisture, and landform. In Ontario, these are referred to as vegetation types. Examples of provincially tracked vegetation communities include Dry Tallgrass Prairie, White Cedar/Goldthread Sphagnum Swamp and Cottonwood Treed Dune. A plant community occurrence is an area of land and/or water on/in which a plant community is or was present.   

An EO has practical conservation value for the plant community; it is a location important to the conservation of the vegetation type. The methodology used to derive an occurrence varies by plant community type and is based on international standards developed by NatureServe that enable cross-jurisdictional comparisons of WCA occurrences. In Ontario, this methodology is coordinated by the Natural Heritage Information Centre (NHIC) of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

Additional Documentation Status Planned: Fixed date has been established upon or by which the data will be created or updated 
  Maintenance and Update Frequency

Not Stated

Contact Natural Heritage Information Centre, [email protected]   

Datasets available for download

Additional Info

Field Value
Last Updated March 24, 2026, 20:42 (UTC)
Created March 24, 2026, 20:42 (UTC)
Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title
Title for the Dataset.
Plant Community Occurrence
Description
A description of the dataset.

To record occurrences of provincially tracked plant communities that are of interest to the NHIC. Often used for by conservation practitioners and for Forest/Municipal/Land Use Planning. Species at Risk (SAR) Legislation, Planning Act, Crown Forest Sustainability Act, Draft Protection and Distribution of Provincially Tracked Species Data Policy

Features related to provincially tracked species and species at risk are not available as open data. Sensitive features are subject to licensing and approvals. Visit the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry website to get access to natural heritage information. 

A plant community is a recurring assemblage of plants, having a consistent composition and structure, which develops in association with particular combinations of substrate, site moisture, and landform. In Ontario, these are referred to as vegetation types. Examples of provincially tracked vegetation communities include Dry Tallgrass Prairie, White Cedar/Goldthread Sphagnum Swamp and Cottonwood Treed Dune. A plant community occurrence is an area of land and/or water on/in which a plant community is or was present.   

An EO has practical conservation value for the plant community; it is a location important to the conservation of the vegetation type. The methodology used to derive an occurrence varies by plant community type and is based on international standards developed by NatureServe that enable cross-jurisdictional comparisons of WCA occurrences. In Ontario, this methodology is coordinated by the Natural Heritage Information Centre (NHIC) of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

Additional Documentation Status Planned: Fixed date has been established upon or by which the data will be created or updated 
  Maintenance and Update Frequency

Not Stated

Contact Natural Heritage Information Centre, [email protected]   
Tags / Keywords
Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc)
File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
0.06
Metadata Identifier
Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
fb5174e5-14a6-4604-85f4-72317fbb5a24
Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
2020-06-12
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.
Open Government Licence – Ontario
Limits on use
Limits on use of data.
Location
Location of the dataset.
https://ontariogeohub-lio.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/lio::plant-community-occurrence
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.
2026-03-09
Field Value
Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
ac832be6d3ed49df9cc19dc02b28b042
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::plant-community-occurrence
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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