Atlantic Canada Coastal Block Boundaries

Between 1974 and 1993, CWS staff divided the coast of Atlantic Canada into coastal blocks to serve as boundaries to count coastal waterbirds during aerial surveys.

The CWS coastal blocks divide coastal waterbird habitat: shoreline, rivers, and marshes, in to areas delimited by landmarks that are easily identified from the air. Each block contains mostly uniform habitat, and blocks usually end where a distinct change in habitat occurs. Discrete small bays or bodies of water are usually treated as a single block, and protected areas such as National Parks, National Wildlife Areas, or Provincial Wildlife Management areas are contained within single or multiple blocks which end at their boundaries.

With the use of GPS technology during aerial surveys, coastal blocks are no longer used to summarize observations of wildlife during aerial surveys. Coastal blocks are often referenced in other CWS datasets, and can serve as ecological boundaries to examine the coast of Atlantic Canada.

Datasets available for download

• Atlantic Region Coastal Block BoundariesFGDB/GDB
  To Download

  • More information
  • Go to resource
• Limites des Blocs Cotiers de l'AtlantiqueFGDB/GDB
  To Download

  • More information
  • Go to resource

• Atlantic provinces
• Boundaries
• Coastal waters
• Nature and Environment

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (46%)
• Maturity Level 2 (31%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:50 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:50 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
Title Title for the Dataset.	Atlantic Canada Coastal Block Boundaries
Description A description of the dataset.	Between 1974 and 1993, CWS staff divided the coast of Atlantic Canada into coastal blocks to serve as boundaries to count coastal waterbirds during aerial surveys. The CWS coastal blocks divide coastal waterbird habitat: shoreline, rivers, and marshes, in to areas delimited by landmarks that are easily identified from the air. Each block contains mostly uniform habitat, and blocks usually end where a distinct change in habitat occurs. Discrete small bays or bodies of water are usually treated as a single block, and protected areas such as National Parks, National Wildlife Areas, or Provincial Wildlife Management areas are contained within single or multiple blocks which end at their boundaries. With the use of GPS technology during aerial surveys, coastal blocks are no longer used to summarize observations of wildlife during aerial surveys. Coastal blocks are often referenced in other CWS datasets, and can serve as ecological boundaries to examine the coast of Atlantic Canada.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Atlantic provinces Boundaries Coastal waters Nature and Environment
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2024-10-30
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).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/f4d003c4-dc5a-4d92-ad15-97aa71b9273b
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Environment and Climate Change Canada | Environnement et Changement climatique Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
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.
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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