CEC Celebrates Open Data Day with new publication from its North American Land Change Monitoring System
In celebration of International Open Data Day, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is pleased to release a new publication marking nearly 20 years of trinational partnership through the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS). This initiative is a collaboration between the CEC and the Governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States, along with their respective mapping agencies, to monitor land cover, the physical surface of the Earth, and its changes over time.
Open Data Day is a global celebration that promotes awareness and use of open and publicly accessible data for everyone. Join us in celebrating the importance of freely accessible data and its role in driving a more sustainable future. Discover and explore today our new publication: “NALCMS: A trinational collaboration of more than 21 million square kilometers.”
Since its launch in 2006, NALCMS has made its land cover products publicly available through the CEC’s North American Environmental Atlas, a collection of harmonized geospatial data from Canada, Mexico and the United States. These thematic map layers provide a continental perspective on transboundary environmental issues and allow the visualization of such environmental aspects as terrestrial and marine ecological regions, climatic zones, and protected areas of the three countries.
“This new publication celebrates the impact of the NALCMS initiative, which has supported researchers, decision-makers and practitioners working on land cover and geologic features in North America since 2006” said Dominique Croteau, CEC Lead for Geospatial and Environmental Information. “Its freely accessible data have contributed to over 500 scientific publications.”
Land cover, the classification of surface features such as forests, urban infrastructure, bodies of water or agricultural land, play crucial roles in understanding and managing our environment. By distinguishing natural and human-made features, land cover and land use data support global, regional and local monitoring efforts, resource management and planning activities. This new resource assembles all NALCMS information and geospatial land cover data into a single and accessible document, which is available to researchers, decision-makers and anyone working on land systems in North America.
The CEC’s NALCMS is a collaborative initiative with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)’s Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO), the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and three Mexican agencies: the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía—INEGI), the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad—Conabio), and the National Forestry Commission (Comisión Nacional Forestal—Conafor).
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About the CEC
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) was established in 1994 by the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States through the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, a parallel environmental agreement to NAFTA. As of 2020, the CEC is recognized and maintained by the Environmental Cooperation Agreement, in parallel with the new Free Trade Agreement of North America. The CEC brings together a wide range of stakeholders, including the general public, Indigenous people, youth, nongovernmental organizations, academia, and the business sector, to seek solutions to protect North America’s shared environment while supporting sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations
The CEC is governed and funded equally by the Government of Canada through Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Government of the United States of Mexico through the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, and the Government of the United States of America through the Environmental Protection Agency.