With an area of 63,489 ha, the City of Toronto is the smallest in area of all the regions considered. With about 82% of the land urbanized, it also has the least amount of Greenlands. Aside from a few parks, the only remnant natural areas are the deeply incised, wooded ravines and valleys associated with the Rouge, Don, and Humber rivers and their tributaries (Figure 5). Wide floodplains along the valley floors, combined with steep forested slopes, inhibit the use of these areas for future development.
The City of Toronto's new Official Plan protects valleylands and a wide range of other natural heritage features (City of Toronto and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority 2001), including wetlands, fish habitat, woodlands, beaches and bluffs, as well as significant landforms (Table 4).
There are only a small number of provincially significant wetlands in the City, mostly in the Rouge River watershed. The protection given to valleylands contributes most of the greenland space - 17.9% of the municipality. A few isolated woodlots and small, unevaluated wetlands covering less than 0.2% of the area are unprotected (Level 4) Greenlands.
Table 4: Levels of Greenlands Protection for the City of Toronto
Figure 5: City of Toronto
