Soils of the - Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Rand designated as agriculture land reserves by the British Columbia Agricultural Land Commission . Many lar
parcels . particularly in the 'upland' areas . are small in size and are used basically as urban sites in a ru r :
setting. Adjacent to the existing metropolitan area and around most of the larger towns much good agricultura l
land has in the past been converted to urban . commercial or industrial uses .
Forestry is a major [and use in the mountainous northern part of the report area. Several managed ar
protected watersheds north of Vancouver provide the metropolitan area with abundant, excellent qualit y
domestic water Several provincial and regional parks . providing a wide variety of year-around . recreationa l
facilities are also present Cottaging and water oriented recreation uses are important on the Sunshine Coas t
and on Bowen and Gambier Islands .
Plate 2 Log booming area on the Fraser River. The Fraser River is an importan t
transportation corridor for moving logs to processing mills in the Vancouver area .
CLIMATIC CHARACTERISTIC S
The Pacific Climatic Region (Hare and Thomas . 1979), into which the Langley-Vancouver map area falls ,
-, can generally be characterized as having warm, rainy winters and relatively cool, dry summers . During winter a
~-- fairly steady succession of low pressure systems moving eastward from the Pacific Ocean produce among t h
cloudiest and rainiest conditions for any part of Canada . In contrast. the summers have frequent long period s
lit-- =s sunny weather as high pressure cells extend over the coast . Temperatures are warm and rainfall is low. Soi l
r
-aim moisture deficiencies frequently develop and irrigation is required on many soils to maintain good agricultura l
production .
Appendices A, B and C are tables which present a variety of climatic data for some representative stato r
in or near the Langley-Vancouver map area . Appendix A indicates that mean annual temperatures are quit e
uniform for most lower elevation locations in the map area . Substantial reductions however, occur with increase d
elevation (see Hollyburn Ridge) . The range in mean monthly temperatures tends to widen with increase d
distance from the ocean, a trend that is slso evident in extreme , iai and high temperatures recorded . No t
unexpectedly. mean annual mortal t, xacme high r ineratures al l dec rease with increasing
elevatio n
Appendix B prov aes precipitation dn• . : ' representative statics ; Mean annual precipitation i s
high, mostly much in excess of 1000 mm aria -creases inland from the ocea' , 1 especial l y .v!Ih .ncrease d
elevation . Snowfall follows a similar trend . Most precipitation occurs during 'h .-
,