- Canada Land Inventory
The Canada Land Inventory (CLI) is a multi-disciplinary land inventory of rural Canada.
Conceptualized in the early 1960s by the Department of Forestry and Rural Development (later the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources), the CLI was a federal-provincial project that lasted from 1963 to 1995 and produced maps which indicated the capability of land to sustain agriculture, forestry, recreation and wildlife; its geographic extent was all of Canada except the North (ie. below the tree line).
CLI used a common classification scheme and a common mapping scale. The large amount of data generated by the CLI saw the early adoption of the world's first
Geographic Information System (GIS), called theCanada Geographic Information System (CGIS).Current use
Since 1995, the CLI agriculture data have been taken over by the Department of Agriculture to continue rating agricultural land capability. The CLI in this modified form consists of a soil survey with rankings from 1 to 7, with Class 1
soil being prime agricultural land and Class 7 having no capability for agricultural activities. The survey also provides sub-classes which specify the limitations of the soil (for example, excessive water, adverse climate, stoniness). The results are mapped on 1:250,000 NTS grids.External links
* [http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/nsdb/cli/intro.html Canada Land Inventory (CLI) - Overview] - Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
* [http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/nsdb/cli/classdesc.html Classes and sub-classes description] - Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
* [http://www.collectionscanada.ca/maps/4_0_gov/05140425_e.html Canada Land Inventory, 1963-1995] Library and Archives Canada
* Soil Maps of Canada [http://eusoils.jrc.it/esdb_archive/EuDASM/indexes/canada.htm European Digital Archive on the Soil Maps of the world]
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