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AAFC Land Use v5: Dominant Land-Use Class per Quarter Section

AAFC's National Land Use product classifies every quarter section as cropland, grassland, forest, or settlement, with an IPCC group. Township Canada carries it per quarter section.

What it is

The AAFC National Land Use product (version 5) classifies the Canadian landscape into broad land-use classes - cropland, grassland, forest, wetland, settlement, and more - at 30-metre resolution. Township Canada samples the dominant class per quarter section and maps it to an IPCC reporting group.

What it carries

Each quarter section carries its dominant land-use class, the AAFC class label, the IPCC group, and the percentage breakdown of classes within the quarter. This is what distinguishes a fully cropped quarter from one that is half grassland or carries a settlement footprint.

Coverage and refresh

We carry a land-use class on more than 1.8 million quarter sections, spanning 37 distinct classes. The product is released roughly every five years (the current data is the 2020 release).

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada. Source: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada - National Land Use.

How Township Canada shows it

Land use appears in the land-use card on the Agriculture tab of the parcel report. It also informs the Productivity Score: when a quarter's dominant use is not cropland, the crop-diversity component is treated neutrally rather than penalizing non-cropped land.

Screenshot to add (/images/learn/data-sources/aafc-land-use/land-use-card.png): the Agriculture tab land-use card showing the dominant class, IPCC group, and the within-quarter class breakdown.