Nordicana D121 / DOI : 10.5885/45855XD-DC9883ABD609428B

The Canadian Permafrost Electrical Resistivity Survey Database (CPERS)

CPERS Collective

Abstract

The Canadian Permafrost Electrical Resistivity Survey Database (CPERS) is a collection of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) datasets collected in permafrost environments. The database currently contains sites in British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Quebec, Yukon, and Alaska.

Each dataset provides information to interpret the presence and distribution of frozen and unfrozen ground along a profile where spatial extent and depth of investigation depend on the survey set-up.

Metadata is currently available for 494 ERT surveys collected at 423 different profiles, with repeat surveys being conducted at 15 of those profiles. Raw ERT data is currently available for 292 surveys, while 33 datasets are currently embargoed and will be published within two years and 169 surveys did not include raw data. Data were acquired between 2008-2024. Amalgamated site and borehole metadata are available as supplementary materials.

This dataset supports the following publication: Herring, T., Lewkowicz, A., Chiasson, A., Wang, Y., Way, R., Young, J., Froese, D. G., Smith, S. L., Andersen, B., Bellehumeur-Génier, O., Bevington, A. R., Bonnaventure, P. P., Duguay, M., Etzelmuller, B., Gooseff, M., Godsey, S. E., & Miceli, C. M. (2024). The Canadian Permafrost Electrical Resistivity Survey (CPERS) Database: 15 years of permafrost resistivity data. Arctic Science. https://doi.org/10.1139/as-2023-0058.

The CPERS database project was funded by NSERC PermafrostNet.

DATA POLICY: In order to use any of these datasets you MUST review and adhere to the CPERS data policy, which can be found at https://data.permafrostnet.ca/cpers/data_policy.html.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Please visit https://data.permafrostnet.ca/cpers/. This site includes an interactive map of survey locations where all datasets can be queried by several different parameters and processed data can easily be plotted. It also includes open-source ERT data processing tools and other helpful resources.

Data citation

CPERS Collective 2025. The Canadian Permafrost Electrical Resistivity Survey Database (CPERS), v. 2.0 (2008-2024). Nordicana D121, doi: 10.5885/45855XD-DC9883ABD609428B.

Location map

Key references

Herring, T., Lewkowicz, A., Chiasson, A., Wang, Y., Way, R., Young, J., Froese, D. G., Smith, S. L., Andersen, B., Bellehumeur-Génier, O., Bevington, A. R., Bonnaventure, P. P., Duguay, M., Etzelmuller, B., Gooseff, M., Godsey, S. E., & Miceli, C. M. (2024). The Canadian Permafrost Electrical Resistivity Survey (CPERS) Database: 15 years of permafrost resistivity data. Arctic Science. https://doi.org/10.1139/as-2023-0058 DOI: 10.1139/as-2023-0058.

Contributors

Herring, Teddi (University of Ottawa, University of Calgary)

Lewkowicz, Antoni (University of Ottawa)

Froese, Duane (University of Alberta)

Calmels, Fabrice (Yukon University)

Way, Robert (University of Ottawa, Queen’s University)

Chiasson, Alexandre (University of Alberta)

Ozeritskiy, Konstantin (University of Calgary)

Wang, Yifeng (University of Ottawa, Queen’s University)

Laurent, Cyrielle (Yukon University)

Landry, Michelle (University of Alberta)

Young, Joseph (University of Alberta)

Alvarez, Alejandro (University of Alberta)

Andersen, Brielle (University of Alberta)

Bellehumeur-Génier, Olivier (University of Ottawa, Transport Canada)

Bevington, Alexandre (University of Ottawa, British Columbia Ministry of Forests)

Bonnaventure, Phillip (University of Ottawa, University of Lethbridge)

Burn, Christopher (Carleton University)

Duguay, Maxime (University of Ottawa, BGC Engineering)

Etzelmüller, Bernd (University of Oslo)

Godsey, Sarah (Penn State University, Idaho State University)

Gooseff, Michael (Penn State University, University of Colorado Boulder)

Hayley, Jocelyn (University of Calgary)

L’Hérault, Emmanuel (Université Laval)

Lorry, Mederic (University of Alberta)

Miceli, Christina (University of Ottawa)

Moshtaghian, Keytash (University of Alberta)

Roy, Louis-Philippe (Yukon University)

Smith, Sharon (Natural Resources Canada)

Acknowledgements

The CPERS project was funded by the Canadian PermafrostNet which is supported by an NSERC Strategic Partnership Grant for Networks. Thanks to all other contributors including Casey A Buchanan, Alain Cuerrier, Frédéric Dwyer-Samuel, Benoit Faucher, Luise Hermanutz, Zoé Kuntz, Caitlin Lapalme, Allison Rubin, and Nick Brown. We also thank members of the International Permafrost Association action group “Towards an International Database of Geoelectrical Surveys on Permafrost (IDGSP)” who led the development of the metadata form and backend database structure used for this project.

Status

Published

Version history

You can request for data from previous versions at nordicana@cen.ulaval.ca.

Version 1.0 (2010-2022) - Updated August 31, 2023

Version 2.0 (2008-2024) - Updated November 5, 2025

Measurement sites

	Site	Latitude	Longitude	Altitude (m)

More info	British Columbia sites	58.284255	-123.73076
More info	Newfoundland and Labrador sites	54.884135	-59.361378
More info	Alaska sites	68.681397	-149.508288
More info	Northwest Territories sites	65.248502	-127.167946
More info	Yukon sites	63.478307	-136.930727
More info	Quebec sites	51.75851	-56.413928
More info	Manitoba sites	57.746902	-94.145717