Natural Resources Canada

A drainage basin is an area that drains all precipitation received as a runoff or base flow (groundwater sources) into a particular river or set of rivers. Canada’s major drainage regions are the Atlantic Ocean, Hudson Bay, Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Rivers are organized into...

Apart from a source of drinking water, the water resources in watersheds supply water for irrigation and the production of hydroelectricity, and are a primary mode of transportation. Major water consumers are municipalities, agriculture, mining, manufacturing and thermal power generation. The...

The physical components of a watershed are rivers, lakes, ponds and reservoirs, groundwater aquifers, snowpacks, glaciers, ice fields, wetlands and precipitation. This map shows the different hydrological components of a watershed, some physical components that affect watersheds and some...

A watershed is an area that drains all precipitation received as a runoff or base flow (groundwater sources) into a particular river or set of rivers. The easiest way to describe the network of rivers and lakes on a small-scale map is to show the watersheds. In Canada, there is a detailed...

This map shows the distribution of land cover types across Canada, based on satellite data obtained in 1995. The land cover map contains 31 classes: 12 forest; 3 shrubland; 7 tundra/grasslands; 7 developed land types including cropland, mosaic and built-up areas; and 2 water cover types.

Permafrost occurs when the ground remains at or below a temperature of 0oC for a minimum period of two years. Permafrost occurs not only at high latitudes but also at high altitudes. Almost all of the soil moisture in permafrost occurs in the form of ground ice, which in turn occurs in several...

This map shows the location of the Arctic physiographic regions which include the Innuitian Region, the Arctic Lowlands and the Arctic Coastal Plains.

This map shows the location of the Cordilleran physiographic region. The Cordilleran Region is divided into three large linear zones called the Eastern System, the Interior System and the Western System. Each system is further divided into areas and subdivided into mountains, ranges, plateaus,...

This map shows the location of the eastern physiographic regions which include the Appalachian Region and the St. Lawrence Lowlands.

This map shows the location of the Interior Plains physiographic region. The Interior Plains occupy the region between the Shield on the east and the mountains of the Cordilleran Region on the west. They join with the St. Lawrence Lowlands of eastern Canada through the United States and are...

Canada’s landscape is very diversified and comprises several distinctive areas, called physiographic regions, each of which has its own topography and geology. The physical geography of Canada comprises two great parts: the Shield and the Borderlands. The Shield consists of a core of old,...

This map shows the location of the Shield physiographic regions. The Shield is divided into five great regions: Kazan Region, Davis Region, Hudson Region, James Region and Laurentian Region. Each of these five regions is divided by subareas, and each of these subareas has its own geological...

Nine zones indicate the areas where various trees, shrubs and flowers are most likely to survive. These zones are calculated based on average climatic conditions and altitude of each area. The harshest zone is 0 and the mildest is 8. Each major zone is divided into subzones a and b (for example...

Canada is a vast country comprised of a multitude of very different landscapes: Atlantic provinces, the Appalachians, St. Lawrence and Great Lakes lowlands, Canadian Shield, The Prairies, mountain ranges and high plateaus of the Canadian Cordillera, and northern Canada.

Most unconsolidated materials covering the Canadian landmass have glacial origins. Some sediments were entrained by glaciers and deposited at a distance without being sorted. Other sediments were picked up and reworked by glacial melt water, or transported and deposited by river or wind action....

An earthquake is the rapid shaking of the Earth’s surface that follows the sudden release of energy within the Earth. They are most commonly caused by movements along the edges of the plates that make up the Earth’s crust. Each year, more than 3500 mostly small earthquakes are recorded in or near...

Floods are part of the natural hydrological cycle (the seasonal fluctuation of water levels) and occur along rivers and streams somewhere in Canada every year. Flooding is a common natural hazard that has caused 260 known disasters since 1900, resulting in the loss of 235 lives and 8.7 billion...

Fire danger rating is the process of systematically evaluating and integrating the factors that determine the ease of a fire starting and spreading, the difficulty of control, and the resulting impacts based on an assessment of ignition risk, the fire environment (fuels, weather, and topography)...

Forest fires are an important part of the Canadian landscape. The number of fires and area burned can vary dramatically from year to year, but there are more than 8000 reported wildfires in Canada during a typical year, burning an average of 2.5 million hectares or 25 000 square kilometres. Only...

A hotspot is a mark on an infrared satellite image indicating a heat source typical of burning vegetation. A hotspot may represent one fire or be one of several hotspots representing a larger fire. Hotspots are located and mapped as part of the Fire Monitoring, Mapping and Modeling System (Fire...