Geomatics for biodiversity

Online resources for geomatics in ecology and biology

Quantum GIS is a free, open source GIS program working under Windows, MacOS and Linux. It can be highly customized with Python scripts and can be used to call GRASS functions. It works with rasters and vectors and can work seamlessly with shapefiles and multiple other file formats.

Geoconnections Discovery Portal* is your first stop for geospatial data. It allows to discover and access Canada's geographic information on the internet.

Geobase is a federal, provincial and territorial government initiative to supply geospatial data to Canadians. It provides free access to multiple GIS-ready vector and raster maps, including: SPOT satellite coverage over all of Canada, elevation data, national hydrology and road networks.

Geogratis is a geospatial data portal operated by Natural Resources Canada that provides free access to GIS maps. Examples include NTS 1:50,000 and 1:250,000 vector and raster maps, digital elevation model over Canada, satellite data and land cover data.

Climate Data and Predictions by the Moscow Forestry Sciences Laboratory, ID, USA provides historic and predicted climatic data for any custom location specified by the user.