Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 April 12

= April 12 =

Fraction of Canadian land that remains undeveloped
I'm trying to find out what percentage of Canada's land remains undeveloped. Unfortunately I'm having trouble finding the relevant statistics online. Does anyone have any idea where I should look? 74.15.136.155 (talk) 19:36, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Somebody provided a map of Canada by land type here a few months ago, and that might be relevant. I will see if I can find it in the archives. StuRat (talk) 20:22, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Looks like it was 18 months ago, and the discussion is here: Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2012_November_8. However, some of those maps are now inaccessible, and others are huge, so be prepared to wait on a slow PC.  I had argued that the reason most of Canada was undeveloped was that the cold, and particularly the permafrost, made in unprofitable to develop.  Others argued that the soil quality was too poor, in any case.  StuRat (talk) 20:37, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Those are two big reasons. Many also argue that our land animals simply work better in vegetation than mines, and our fish prefer water to pretty much everything. Some other reasoning in Northern Ontario Ring of Fire. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:14, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I can't speak to the provenance of the information contained but, this says Canada's urban land is about 0.27%. Plus our article says that agricultural land is 5.22%. Not counting industrial uses like mining and oil works, which wouldn't be a very big number either, we are talking somewhere about 94% unused or undeveloped land. Mingmingla (talk) 21:31, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * You may want to see the map of Alberta at the top of Athabasca oil sands. Pretty big number, even percentage-wise. Also consider roads and railways (not sure if they're counted as "urban"). InedibleHulk (talk) 22:04, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Apparently, "urban" isn't even an official Statistics Canada term anymore. Now it's split into three kinds of Population Centres. "Rural" is still rural, which still involves houses, roads and other development. So that's a big chunk off the 94%, if that source was using "urban" in the old StatsCan sense. Judging from the copyright date, it was. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:00, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Rural could still be counted under agrictulural. I don't imagine it would take a whole lot of a percentage overall even if it didn't.


 * And, to be fair to the oilsands, that map area is the whole deposit, not active mines. Still forest on top of most, and much is legally protected from development or unprofitably stuck. But it's in a constant state of pre-development prodding and measuring, so hard to call it "untouched". InedibleHulk (talk) 23:59, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Untouched isn't the same as undeveloped. Clear cuts are allowed to regrow, but I don't many people who would consider that developed. And Canada is freakin' huge. Mingmingla (talk) 19:59, 13 April 2014 (UTC)