1985-2000 land cover maps larger image [GIF, 117.5 kb, 500 X 421, notice]

As part of the NRCan/ESS Reducing Canada's Vulnerability to Climate Change Program a series of land cover maps were created for the period 1985-2000. The maps were produced from NOAA/AVHRR imagery at 1 km pixel resolution using a new map updating procedure. The base line map is the 1995 land cover produced by the CCRS. This version of the time series is supplied at the same 31 class thematic level of the original 1995 land cover map. At this thematic resolution the maps are provided to allow for numerous aggregate legends to be devised for various analysis tasks of interest. At the 9 class thematic level the maps were found to have similar accuracy to other national level land cover products for Canada. The product is intended for use in national scale ecosystem modeling and to the show the general temporal trends in land cover change.

The multi-year land cover for Canada is available through GeoGratis.

For more information contact: Rasim Latifovc

The NRCan/ESS Program Reducing Canada's Vulnerability to Climate Change (RCVCC) supports a research activity committed to national scale medium-resolution EO data products for environmental and climate applications. This research activity is aimed at improvement of processing methodologies for generating consistent and comprehensive satellite records with reduced variations arising from sources such as the noise in sensor internal calibration data, geometric correction, different illumination conditions and viewing geometry, drift in satellite orbit and problems in correcting atmospheric effects.

As part of this research, data acquired by the VEGETATION 1 and 2 instruments onboard SPOT 4 and 5 satellites were systematically corrected for the period 1998-2004 following CCRS post-seasonal correction methodology. Initial data type 10-day S10 composites provided by CNES and pre-processed at VITO (Belgium) in full resolution (1km) were re-projected into standard LCC map projection and further corrected for BRDF effects and cloud contamination. Growing seasons 1998-2004 contains twenty 10-day composites from April 11, to October 31. Each composite contains four at-surface apparent reflectance bands: blue (0.43-0.47 m), red (0.61-0.68 m), near infrared (0.78-0.89 m), and shortwave infrared (1.58-1.75 m) and pseudo bands NDVI and Cloud mask. This improved product are used in land cover and climate change studies to generate various high-level products such as Fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR), Leaf Area Index (LAI) and crown closure.

These data are produced by a collaborative effort of the Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Earth Sciences Sector and Canadian Space Agency. The VGT archive is available through GeoGratis.

For more information: Rasim Latifovic

Monthly composite SPOT/VGT - July 2004 larger image [GIF, 87.2 kb, 520 X 436, notice]

View maps

larger image [GIF, 60.7 kb, 997 X 840, notice]

Description: This data set corresponds to daily snow and inland ice cover maps over Canada and adjacent territories. The maps are nominally 500m resolution satellite images classified as land with snow, land without snow, open water, snow, ice over water, or water masked by clouds. The maps may contain some regions mapped at 4km resolution in the case of cloud cover. The data for this map are provided by a collaborative effort of the Government of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Earth Sciences Sector, the United States National Oceanic and Atmosphere Association and NASA.