Data access
Full access to our resources is available to current students, faculty, and staff of the University of Waterloo. To request access, please complete the Ask-Us form indicating the specific layers (shapefiles) you require. Upon completion of the data release agreement form, the dataset will be provided to you via OneDrive.
In-person consultations may also be requested through the Ask-Us form.
Description
The Geospatial has a wide variety of elevation and related data available from a variety of sources. Recently acquired is the Ontario Classified Point Cloud (Lidar-Derived) data from OMNRF. This data consists of points containing elevation and intensity information derived from returns collected by an airborne topographic lidar sensor. The minimum point cloud classes are Unclassified, Ground, Water, High and Low Noise. The data is structured into non-overlapping 1-km by 1-km tiles in LAZ format and is available for most areas of Ontario.
The geospatial Centre also has preprocessed elevation data for various analysis tools such as Arc Hydro, Hec-RAS, Net Logo, etc. in the form of DTMs.
The Ontario Digital Terrain Model (Lidar-Derived) is a raster dataset representing the bare-earth terrain derived from a classified lidar point cloud. The datasets are .5m resolution and cover years ranging from 2014 to 2024.
Projects:
LEAP 2009
GTA 2014-18
OMAFRA 2016-18
CLOCA 2018
South Nation CA 2018-19
Muskoka 2018-23
York-Lake Simcoe 2019
Ottawa River 2019-20
Ottawa-Gatineau 2019-20
Lake Nipissing 2020
Hamilton-Niagara 2021
Huron Shores 2021
Eastern Ontario 2021-22
OMAFRA Lake Huron 2022
OMAFRA Lake Simcoe 2022
Belleville 2022
Digital Elevation Data to Support Flood Mapping 2022-26
Huron-Georgian Bay 2022-23
Kawartha Lakes 2023
Sault Ste Marie 2023-24
Sudbury 2023-24
Thunder Bay 2023-24
Timmins 2024
Cataraqui 2024
Chapleau 2024
Dryden 2024
Ignace 2024
Northeastern Ontario 2024
Sioux Lookout 2024
Atikokan 2024
Greater Toronto Area Lidar 2023
Use restrictions/ licensing/ copyright
These data are provided for personal use for academic, research, and/or teaching purposes. A data release agreement must be agreed to before these licensed data can be released. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources must be acknowledged on any derivative product, whether printed or electronic, including for example, a printed map, a raster or vector graphic, a web-based application, etc. Patrons are advised to fully respect the provisions of Canada's Copyright Act as well as terms and conditions imposed by the data provider.
Citation
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources [computer file]. Toronto, Ontario: The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, [2025].