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 (i.e. below the tree line).
CLI used a common classification scheme and common mapping scales (1:50K 1:250K and 1:1 million). Land capability for agriculture, forestry, land-use, recreation, wildlife (ungulates and waterfowl) were mapped The large amount of data generated by the CLI saw the early adoption of the world's first
geographic information system
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...
(GIS), called the
Canada Geographic Information System
{{Unreferenced, date=October 2012
The Canada Geographic Information System (CGIS) was an early geographic information system (GIS) developed for the Government of Canada beginning in the early 1960s. CGIS was used to store geospatial data for th ...
(CGIS).
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
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...
having no limitations for arable crop production and Class 7 having no capability for agricultural activities. Classes 1-3 are considered
prime agricultural land, and are protected by land use policies in certain provinces, including Ontario. Classes 2-6 have certain limitations for arable crop production, denoted by 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
Canada Land Inventory (CLI) - Overview- Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Natural Resources Canada
- Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
References
* {{cite web , title=Canada Land Inventory , website=The Canadian Encyclopedia , date=2013-12-16 , url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canada-land-inventory , ref={{sfnref , The Canadian Encyclopedia , 2013 , access-date=2021-05-22
Government of Canada
Soil by country