The Canadian Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (NRCan) continues its work to implement the National Elevation Data Strategy. Through this strategy, one of NRCan's goal is to provide Canadians with an accurate three-dimensional representation of the country, in support of government priorities such as flood mapping. Because of the enormous task of obtaining a high-precision and up-to-date national elevation layer, NRCan works with different entities.

The data coverage of the strategy will include 500,000 km2 in the south (from LiDAR), as well as the entire Canadian Arctic (from satellite imagery) in the spring of 2021. All of this data is available openly and free of charge through the High Resolution Digital Elevation Model (HRDEM).

In addition, in December 2020, NRCan made available a continuous mosaic of the HRDEM data. The mosaic is produced using the most up-to-date elevation data available at NRCan. This mosaic is implemented to facilitate navigation and interaction with the best elevation data in Canada. This mosaic is disseminated using NRCan's recently implemented Topographic Data Cube, which uses geospatial big data management technologies. These technologies enable the rapid and efficient visualization of high-resolution geospatial data and allow for the rapid generation of dynamically derived products.

Finally, NRCan manages the Federal Airborne LiDAR Data Acquisition Guideline. A new version of the document was released in Fall 2020, which includes a new appendix on best practices for topobathymetric LiDAR data acquisition. This new version is in line with NRCan's commitment to make it evolve in accordance with advances and trends in the field of airborne LiDAR in Canada and internationally.