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Satellite Imagery Shows Canada is Changing

Victoria and Vancouver, B.C.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has produced a mosaic of images of Canada taken in about 2000 that helps show how the country has changed over a ten-year period. The striking visual picture is the highest-resolution image of Canada freely available.

NRCan’s Canadian Forest Service (CFS) produced the mosaic in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency as part of the Earth Observation for Sustainable Development of Forests (EOSD) program. The mosaic, made up of hundreds of smaller images from a NASA satellite, creates a very large file. Thanks to compression technology, it has been reduced and can be downloaded to virtually any computer.

In 2003, NRCan released an earlier mosaic of images of Canada taken inabout 1990. Comparing the two mosaics allows researchers to detect changes in the land cover. This helps them understand how natural and human-made disturbances affect the landscape, and this information can be provided, in turn, to people in business and government who make decisions and policies. 

Prince Edward Island

“Space-based earth observation technologies allow us to create a variety of products integral to monitoring the land mass and natural resources,” says Jeff Dechka, Forest Information Director at the CFS Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria.

By working in partnership with the provinces and territories, EOSD develops land-cover maps of the forested area of Canada.

Morgan Cranny, EOSD Remote Sensing Data and Product Coordinator, says this information will contribute to the National Forest Inventory, which forms a baseline for monitoring Canada’s forests.

To get jpeg, tif and full-resolution versions of the 2000 mosaic of Canada, visit the EOSD Web site. You can also see examples of the types of changes that can be detected by comparing the 1990 and 2000 data.

For more information call Lynda Chambers, Media Relations Officer, at (250) 363-0794.