North America Bathymetry

Overview This map layer prepared by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) presents the cumulative impact of human activities on marine ecosystems across North America based on Halpern et al. 2008. A global map of human impact on marine ecosystems. Science 319 (5865): 948–952. To generate this map, a research team collected or created global maps of 17 different human activities, such as fishing and pollution, that have an impact on marine ecosystems, as well as maps of different marine ecosystems. The team quantified the vulnerability of each marine ecosystem to the different human activities, and this map of human impacts was made by combining the threat maps and the vulnerability scores. Geographic Coverage The coverage spans North American marine areas, including the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. Data Sources and Licensing Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Halpern et al. (2008). The data is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), allowing redistribution and adaptation with appropriate attribution. Update frequency: Not planned Limitations of use: Acknowledgment of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and/or the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis is appreciated in products derived from these data. Vintage: 2007–2008 Applications (Intended Use) Marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management. Allocation of conservation resources and identification of priority areas for protection. Assessing cumulative human pressures on ocean ecosystems for research and education. Supporting cross-border environmental cooperation and policy-making among North American nations. Files Download

Overview This layer maps the ecological scorecard sites for marine protected areas (MPAs) across North America as part of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) North American Environmental Atlas. To assess the environmental conditions of MPAs, experts developed an Ecological Assessment Scorecard methodology that distills large amounts of complex technical and traditional/local ecological knowledge about MPA conditions. These scorecards are an easy yet powerful tool for MPA managers to share evidence-based ecological information about water, habitat, and living resources. The scorecard for each MPA is based on standard questions about three key themes (water, habitat, and living resources) to describe environmental health. Conditions for each ecosystem element addressed by the questions are defined on a five-point scale, ranging from superior (best it could be) to critical (worst it could be). Trends in conditions are likewise defined in five categories, ranging from rapidly improving to rapidly diminishing (likely to reach a different state in five years), with stable indicating conditions unlikely to change beyond normal variation. Geographic Coverage This layer covers the ecological scorecard sites for marine protected areas in the Bering Sea to Baja California (B2B) region, spanning Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Data Sources and Licensing Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and NOAA Marine Protected Areas Center. This material is licensed under CC BY 4.0, allowing non-exclusive rights to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, including for commercial purposes, so long as attribution is given to the creator. Update frequency: Irregular Limitations of use: None. Acknowledgement of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and NOAA Marine Protected Areas Center would be appreciated in products derived from these data. Vintage: 2008 Applications (Intended Use) Sharing evidence-based ecological information about water, habitat, and living resources conditions within marine protected areas. Supporting MPA managers in tracking ecological conditions and trends over time. Research, education, monitoring, and reporting on the ecological health of North American marine protected areas. Reference framework for comparing environmental conditions across MPAs in the Bering Sea to Baja California (B2B) region. Integration with other thematic layers in the North American Environmental Atlas for comprehensive continental analysis. Supporting cross-border environmental cooperation and policy-making among North American nations. Files Download

Overview This layer shows the distribution of salt marsh habitats across North America. It forms part of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) Blue Carbon mapping series, which documents the coastal ecosystems (salt marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses) that capture and store carbon along the North American coastline. Salt marshes occupy the intertidal zones of sheltered marine and estuarine coastlines, and support estuarine food webs by providing nesting, nursery, and feeding habitat for birds, fish, molluscs, and crustaceans. The extent of salt marshes in North America was estimated by combining eight source datasets produced with different methods, spanning global, national, and regional coverage and derived from both ground surveys and remotely sensed imagery. Where sources overlapped, priority was assigned following criteria defined by a trinational panel of eleven experts, convened through three national workshops led by the Mexican Carbon Program, giving precedence to more recent, finer-resolution, better-documented, and more locally specific data. The dataset is intended to support estimates of blue carbon sink potential and to serve as a standardized, publicly available input for carbon budget analyses. Documentation of every source and the preprocessing applied to each is provided in the accompanying Blue Carbon Map source data notes 2021. Geographic Coverage This layer covers the coastal zones of North America, including Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Data Sources and Licensing This dataset integrates the Global Distribution of Saltmarshes (UNEP-WCMC), the United States National Wetlands Inventory, Version 2 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), C-CAP salt marsh habitat data for New Hampshire and Rhode Island (NOAA and RIGIS), the Nova Scotia Forest Inventory, the British Columbia ShoreZone Observed Habitat Polygons, the Prince Edward Island 2000 Wetlands Inventory, the New Brunswick Hydrographic Network, and the St. Lawrence wetlands classification (Environment and Climate Change Canada). This material is licensed under CC BY 4.0, allowing non-exclusive rights to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, including for commercial purposes, so long as attribution is given to the creator. Update frequency: Irregular Limitations of use: None. Acknowledgement of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation would be appreciated in products derived from these data. Vintage: 2021 Applications (Intended Use) Estimating blue carbon sink potential across North American coastal ecosystems. Providing a standardized, publicly available input dataset for carbon budget analyses. Coastal habitat conservation planning and marine protected area management. Assessing coastal ecosystem vulnerability and adaptation capacity in the face of relative sea level rise. Integration with other thematic layers in the North American Environmental Atlas for comprehensive continental analysis. Supporting cross-border environmental cooperation and policy-making among North American nations. Files Download

Overview This map layer presents a dataset of named populated places across North America, encompassing Canada, the United States, and Mexico, suitable for use at a continental scale of 1:10,000,000. The information is derived from the national mapping and census agencies of each country: Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). It is a revised version of the 2004 data set, released as part of a joint venture coordinated by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). Places, which refer to individual municipalities, are represented as points fitted to the North American Environmental Atlas roads, railroads, and hydrography layers, so that each point reflects the approximate location of a place relative to those features. The selection of populated places was based on local importance as indicated by population size, importance as a cross-border point, and occasionally other factors. All capital cities (national, provincial, territorial, or state) are included for Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The dataset supports multiple languages for attribute names, including English, Spanish, and French, facilitating accessibility across North America. It also includes standardized identifiers and classification codes for population class, capital status, country, and state or province for each place. Geographic Coverage The coverage spans North America, including the continental territories of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Features located outside these three countries are included only to provide geographic context and carry no completeness or accuracy guarantees from the contributing agencies. Data Sources and Licensing This data is produced by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), derived from national atlas and census programs in Canada (Natural Resources Canada, Statistics Canada), Mexico (INEGI), and the United States (U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Census Bureau). The compiled dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), allowing redistribution and adaptation with appropriate attribution. Update frequency: Irregular Limitations of use: Intended for continental-scale reference. Positional accuracy is dependent on the source data and integration processes. Data outside Canada, Mexico, and the United States is provided for context only; the CEC and partner agencies assume no responsibility for its completeness or accuracy. Vintage: The information presented in the map layer represents data compiled in 2009, based on national census records from 2000–2001. Applications (Intended Use) Continental-scale reference and base mapping Transportation and cross-border connectivity analysis Population distribution and urban settlement research Environmental and policy research requiring geographic context Educational and reference purposes Files Download

Overview This layer, prepared by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), represents the month of October within a dataset of 12 raster files (one for each month) representing total precipitation values across North America for the 1981–2010 climatological reference period, in millimeters. The dataset is derived from a kilometer-scale climate product generated using the CHELSA downscaling model and represents long-term climatological means. The North American monthly precipitation layers were derived from the CHELSA Climatologies v2.1 dataset, which is based on statistically downscaled temperature and precipitation data at a spatial resolution of 30 arc-seconds (~1 km). CHELSA (Climatologies at High Resolution for the Earth's Land Surface Areas) applies a statistical downscaling approach to atmospheric precipitation fields to produce high-resolution climate surfaces. Additional technical details on the downscaling methodology and derived climate predictors are provided in: Karger, D. N., Conrad, O., Böhner, J., Kawohl, T., Kreft, H., Soria-Auza, R. W., Zimmermann, N. E., Linder, H. P., & Kessler, M. (2017). Climatologies at high resolution for the Earth's land surface areas. Scientific Data, 4, 170122. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.122 Geographic Coverage The coverage spans North America, including Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Data Sources and Licensing Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). Karger et al. (2017). The data is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), allowing redistribution and adaptation with appropriate attribution. Update frequency: Irregular Limitations of use: None. Acknowledgment of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and the (CHELSA) initiative at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL (Land Change Science group) would be appreciated in products derived from these data. Vintage: 1981-2010 Applications (Intended Use) Analyzing spatial and seasonal patterns of monthly precipitation across North America. Supporting climate, hydrological, and water-resource research and planning. Informing agricultural and ecological modeling and land-use planning. Integration with other thematic layers in the North American Environmental Atlas for continental-scale analysis. Supporting environmental cooperation and policy-making among Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Files Download

Overview This 30-meter dataset reflects land cover information for 2010 from Mexico and Canada, and 2011 for Alaska and the conterminous United States. Each country developed its own classification method to identify land cover classes and provided an input layer to produce a continental land cover map across North America. The main inputs for image classification were 30-meter Landsat data; image selection varied by country according to site-specific requirements. Canada selected most images from 2010, with a few from 2009 and 2011; the United States primarily used 2011 imagery; and Mexico used all available images from 2010. National maps were generated for Canada by the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS); for Mexico by the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad), National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía), and National Forestry Commission of Mexico (Comisión Nacional Forestal); and for the United States by the United States Geological Survey. Each country used its own approach, ancillary data, and mapping methodology, and the national datasets were then combined by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) into a seamless North American product, merging four map sections: Alaska, Canada, the conterminous United States, and Mexico. The current version (version 3) includes updated data over Canada, provided by the CCRS and the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO) in February 2024, along with updated 2011 land cover datasets for Alaska and the conterminous United States, provided by the USGS in February 2024. The main change in Alaska relates to the inclusion of an improved road network. No updates were performed over Mexico for this version. Land Cover Classes The raster attribute table provides 19 thematic land cover classes plus a background value, with class names in English, Spanish, and French: 1: Temperate or sub-polar needleleaf forest 2: Sub-polar taiga needleleaf forest 3: Tropical or sub-tropical broadleaf evergreen forest 4: Tropical or sub-tropical broadleaf deciduous forest 5: Temperate or sub-polar broadleaf deciduous forest 6: Mixed forest 7: Tropical or sub-tropical shrubland 8: Temperate or sub-polar shrubland 9: Tropical or sub-tropical grassland 10: Temperate or sub-polar grassland 11: Sub-polar or polar shrubland-lichen-moss 12: Sub-polar or polar grassland-lichen-moss 13: Sub-polar or polar barren-lichen-moss 14: Wetland 15: Cropland 16: Barren lands 17: Urban and built-up 18: Water 19: Snow and ice Geographic Coverage The service covers Canada, the United States, and Mexico, including Alaska. Data Sources and Licensing This dataset is produced by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), derived from national land cover maps provided by Natural Resources Canada, the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, the National Forestry Commission; and the United States Geological Survey. The compiled dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), allowing redistribution and adaptation with appropriate attribution. Update frequency: Irregular Limitations of use: Intended for continental-scale reference. Vintage: 2010 Applications (Intended Use) Land cover review and continental- to national-scale mapping. Environmental monitoring and change detection over time. Spatial analysis and integration with other thematic layers in the North American Environmental Atlas. Supporting cross-border environmental cooperation and policy-making among North American nations. Files Download