Alberta Land Inventory (ALI) and Canada Land Inventory (CLI) Landform

The Canada Land Inventory (CLI), being a national comprehensive survey of the capability and use of land, was designed to provide a basis for planning the use of resources and land, and to encourage use of this information in land development planning at municipal, provincial and federal levels of government. The CLI and ALI landform maps were developed to provide basic information required to produce land capability maps. The objective of these two base mapping programs was to delineate relatively homogeneous land units, based on their physical characteristics, and to describe these units such that their suitability for various land uses could be assessed in a standardized manner using a documented methodology.

Alberta Land Inventory (ALI) and Canada Land Inventory (CLI) Landform consists of a single polygon feature class with associated attributes. These attributes describe the landform polygons in terms of parent geologic material, surface form, generalized texture, and slope. The attribution includes the original ALI/CLI coding as well as the equivalent Physical Land Classification (PLC) codes.

CLI and ALI landform polygons were photo interpreted in the 1960's and 70's. The linework was transferred to mylar overlay and 319 maps were published at a scale of 1:63360, using the National Topographic Series (NTS) maps as a base. The structure of the map symbols is slightly different for the two series. There is additional free-form text on the CLI landform maps to describe the direction of glacial movement and presence of specific geomorphic features such as eskers but the information is essentially the same for the two series. In some cases, a single base map may have both the initial CLI landform mapping on part of the map sheet and subsequent ALI landform mapping on the remainder of the same sheet. These published hardcopy maps and mylars were later scanned into .tif images and then processed into a single ArcInfo coverage. Scanned images were georeferenced, cleaned and vectorized. The resulting landform polygons were attributed and merged into a single coverage, using permanent water bodies from Alberta's Base Features Hydrography Polygons as a base. The ALI and CLI landform polygon feature class is derived from this merged coverage.

Data and Resources

Field Value
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • AmeriGEO
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • CKAN
  • Canada
  • GEO
  • GEOSS
  • National
  • North America
isopen False
license_id ab-ogla
license_title ab-ogla
maintainer_email AEP.GDAMetadata@gov.ab.ca
metadata_created 2025-11-24T21:24:49.201242
metadata_modified 2025-11-24T21:24:49.201247
notes The Canada Land Inventory (CLI), being a national comprehensive survey of the capability and use of land, was designed to provide a basis for planning the use of resources and land, and to encourage use of this information in land development planning at municipal, provincial and federal levels of government. The CLI and ALI landform maps were developed to provide basic information required to produce land capability maps. The objective of these two base mapping programs was to delineate relatively homogeneous land units, based on their physical characteristics, and to describe these units such that their suitability for various land uses could be assessed in a standardized manner using a documented methodology. Alberta Land Inventory (ALI) and Canada Land Inventory (CLI) Landform consists of a single polygon feature class with associated attributes. These attributes describe the landform polygons in terms of parent geologic material, surface form, generalized texture, and slope. The attribution includes the original ALI/CLI coding as well as the equivalent Physical Land Classification (PLC) codes. CLI and ALI landform polygons were photo interpreted in the 1960's and 70's. The linework was transferred to mylar overlay and 319 maps were published at a scale of 1:63360, using the National Topographic Series (NTS) maps as a base. The structure of the map symbols is slightly different for the two series. There is additional free-form text on the CLI landform maps to describe the direction of glacial movement and presence of specific geomorphic features such as eskers but the information is essentially the same for the two series. In some cases, a single base map may have both the initial CLI landform mapping on part of the map sheet and subsequent ALI landform mapping on the remainder of the same sheet. These published hardcopy maps and mylars were later scanned into .tif images and then processed into a single ArcInfo coverage. Scanned images were georeferenced, cleaned and vectorized. The resulting landform polygons were attributed and merged into a single coverage, using permanent water bodies from Alberta's Base Features Hydrography Polygons as a base. The ALI and CLI landform polygon feature class is derived from this merged coverage.
num_resources 1
num_tags 8
title Alberta Land Inventory (ALI) and Canada Land Inventory (CLI) Landform