Helpful Data Sources

Here are are a few place you can look for data. There are plenty other out there, if you search google.

1. Helpful Data Sources
   1. Simply Analytics
   2. Google Earth Engine
   3. Data BC
   4. Municipal Data Sources
   5. BC Air Quality Data
   6. BC Precipitation and Temperature Data

Simply Analytics

With Simply Analytics, you can download Cenus Data for Canada and/or the United States. You can also download businesses locations.

Google Earth Engine

Google Earth Engine has lots of datasets, we’ve only covered two; using Landsat8 to calculate NDVI and and working with DEMs (see code below). If you’d like to work with something we haven’t worked with I’m happy to help facilitate downloading it, just send me an email. Do not wait until the last minute to contact me asking for help with a download.

• This code can be used to download a DEM via the google earth code editor, similar to what we did in to download NDVI, just make sure to upload an appropriate boundary file first.

var dataset = ee.ImageCollection('NRCan/CDEM').mean();
var elevation = dataset.select('elevation');
var elevationVis = {
  min: -50.0,
  max: 1500.0,
  palette: ['0905ff', 'ffefc4', 'ffffff'],
};


Map.centerObject(Boundary)
Map.addLayer(Boundary)
Map.addLayer(elevation, elevationVis, 'Elevation');

// Export to Google drive
Export.image.toDrive({
  image: elevation,
  description: 'DEM',
  scale: 25,
  region: Boundary
});

Data BC

Data BC has many different datasetes. You can search for them by key terms. Some useful data sets might include:

• Old Growth Forests - legal - current
• Freshwater Atlas Stream Network
• Freshwater Atlas Rivers
• Freshwater Atlas Coastlines
• BC Wildfire Fire Centres
• Fire Burn Severity - Historical
• Some downloads from this site require you to filter by Map sheets

Municipal Data Sources

The City of Vancouver Data Portal has a lots of data for the city: parks, zoning, bike lanes, transit etc. Only for the City Vancouver. Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby, etc. have their own. Metro-Vancouver, which is inclusive of all thse cities has more data. Most large municipalities have some sort of data portal.

• eg. Google: “Toronto open data” and see what comes up.

BC Air Quality Data

I’ve compiled BCs air quality data into a format you can import into ArcGIS Pro. Follow the link and make sure to read the metadata.

BC Precipitation and Temperature Data

I’ve compiled Environment Canada’s Precipitation and Temperature data for all currently operating station in BC into a format you can import into ArcGIS Pro. Follow the link and make sure to read the metadata.