Bathymetry Data

Looking for land elevation data? Go to our Elevation Data page.

Like elevation data, bathymetric data (underwater elevation) generally comes in two formats: contour lines or digital elevation models (DEMs). Contour lines are the elevation lines you often see on topographic maps and they are generally measured in feet or metres below sea level. DEMs are raster datasets that have pixels like a digital image, except that each pixel contains an elevation value for the land area (e.g. 900m² in a DEM with a 30m resolution) that the pixel covers. It is possible to create DEMs from contours and contours from DEMs using GIS software.

Below is a list of bathymetric datasets by geography, beginning with Ottawa-Gatineau and moving up to the entire world. Those available only to Carleton students, faculty, and staff are marked with a Carleton logo. All others are freely available to anyone.

The bathymetric datasets listed on this page are for non-navigational use only, unless otherwise specified.

Bathymetric data for Ottawa-Gatineau | Ontario | Canada | USA & North America | International

Ottawa-Gatineau

• Canadian Hydrographic Service bathymetric data
  • Includes 20m point (txt) data from just west of Parliament Hill to east of Montréal
• Canadian Hydrographic Service Digital Charts of the Rideau Canal and Ottawa River
  • This dataset includes only navigable areas of the river and canal, and the data is composed of scanned hydrographic charts that have been georeferenced

Ontario

• NOAA Great Lakes Bathymetry - 125m-2500m vertical resolutions (varies)
• Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry lake bathymetry lines - vertical resolution "within 10 metres"
  • OMNRF lake bathymetry points (spot depths) - vertical resolution "within 10 metres"
  • OMNRF Historic Bathymetry Maps - "Between 1948 and 1995 the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) captured bathymetry data for over 11,000 lakes across Ontario."

Canada

• Commission for Environmental Cooperation Bathymetry (North American Atlas) - 200m-2500m resolution
  • Includes USA and Mexico and is seamless for North America
  • Bathymetry layer is under Reference layers
• NONNA-100 & NONNA-10 bathymetric data​ from Fisheries and Oceans Canada - 100m & 10m spatial resolution
  • Using the map, click on the appropriate tiles to download; zoom in closer to view/download NONNA-10.
  • "The Canadian Hydrographic Service’s (CHS) NONNA-10 and NONNA-100 Bathymetric Data products represent a consolidation of digital bathymetric sources managed by the CHS. The CHS NONNA products are for non-navigational use only."
  • More details
• For more remote/northern areas, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - 1-minute resolution (~1.8km)
  • The ETOPO1 (bedrock) dataset includes coastal bathymetry
  • Generate bathymetric contours from the GeoTIFF using this workflow
• Provincial and territorial datasets:
  • Alberta: search for individual lakes (GIS file formats; lines and DEMs); digitized historical hydrographic data
  • British Columbia: bathymetric maps of surveyed lakes; scanned maps only (not geospatial)
  • Yukon: lake bathymetry (scanned maps only, not geospatial)

USA & North America

• Commission for Environmental Cooperation Bathymetry (North American Atlas) - 200m-2500m resolution
  • Includes USA and Mexico and is seamless for North America
  • Bathymetry layer is under Reference layers
• Greenland gridded and contour bathymetry from Oceans Melting Greenland - 25-50m resolution
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) bathymetry datasets - resolution varies by dataset
  • Includes multiple series of bathymetric datasets for the coastal United States (including Puerto Rico)
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Relief Models - 3-second resolution (90m)
  • The Coastal Relief Models dataset includes coastal bathymetry
  • Generate bathymetric contours from the GeoTIFF or ASCII using this workflow

International

• General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) has a variety of gridded datasets and an application to select areas and filetypes
• High-resolution depth model for the Great Barrier Reef - 30m resolution
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - varies but often 1-minute resolution (~1.8km)
  • Use the drop-down list to select a dataset & the rectangle tool below the zoom to draw an area of interest
  • The ETOPO1 (bedrock) dataset includes coastal bathymetry
  • Generate bathymetric contours from the GeoTIFF using this Global Mapper workflow (start at step 2)
• NOAA Bathymetry and Global Relief datasets