February 24, 2005 at Camsell Hall, Ottawa ON

Environmentally Friendly Greenfield Hydroelectric Projects
Babar Khan, Regional Power Inc.

Regional Power is in the business of developing, refurbishing, financing and operating hydroelectric power projects. The Geomatics Datasets from the Ministry of Natural Resources have been widely used by Regional Power in its development side of the business to develop environmentally friendly Greenfield hydroelectric projects.

1: 50,000 DEMs have been used for contour generation, preliminary civil engineering design, watershed modeling, flood analysis and 3D virtual visualizations of project areas. LandSAT 7 imagery has been very useful in the terrain analysis and the remote sensing applications for both the operations and the development of hydroelectric projects. NTDB vector files have provided great assistance in the creation of general project layouts identifying roads, transmission lines, environmentally sensitive and urban areas. All of the above datasets compliment each other and are helpful in the preliminary designs, terrain analysis, hydrological modelling and environmental engineering.

These datasets allow Regional Power to understand the project variables better and address local and environmental issues for reliable and sustainable hydroelectric development.

Once the scope of the project is defined, Regional Power uses LIDAR (Light Ranging and Detection) topographic datasets to finalize its projects. Regional Power appreciates the datasets provided by NRCan and hopes that it will continue to add new and improved datasets to facilitate environmentally friendly development of Canada's resources.

Exploration and Lithological Mapping in the North
Michael J. Peshko, Geologic Business Solutions.

It has been demonstrated that the value hyperspectral remote sensing can bring to a mineral exploration program is the ability to generate quality targets more quickly and, therefore, at lower cost than traditional methods. The results are an enhanced exploration cycle (geo-data collection, analysis, target generation, mineral occurrence, deposit) that allows quicker turnover of exploration targets and reducing the time and cost of discovery. Regional airborne hyperspectral surveying is currently being utilized by NRCan's Earth Sciences Sector (ESS) and will have a direct impact on strategic objectives of initiatives such as the Northern Resources Development (NRD) Program "Development of the North".

Hyperspectral technology will eventually change the mapping process in northern Canada. While it will never eliminate the need for on-site validation and the other information not obtainable from a remote sensing platform, it can substantially improve how programs are implemented (e.g., field time required, sites visited) and provide valuable information to resource managers so they can more effectively allocate and schedule resources. Organizations such as the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing provide valuable support to current and future hyperspectral programs in Canada by providing their technical expertise and experience. Their goal is to improve the accuracy of airborne hyperspectral data through systematic analysis of in-flight and ground-based information, which will in turn enhance the value of hyperspectral data to both government mapping agencies and the commercial mineral industry.

The Use of "intelligent" Stream Networks for Fisheries Management and Land Use Planning in British Columbia
Art Tautz, Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, Province of British Columbia

British Columbia has been in the process of developing intelligent stream networks for of natural resource management applications for over two decades. Intelligent stream networks are defined as GIS layers containing coding systems that allow users to obtain positional information (what features are upstream or downstream of a given point on a stream) from BOTH the GIS system and from traditional data base queries.

British Columbia originally used the NTS 1:50000 map series as the basis for its Watershed Atlas. The atlas consists of a series of basic layers including lakes, streams, stream reaches, wetlands, and watershed boundaries. Hundreds of attributes are attached to these layers which are now used in a variety of natural resource planning applications.

The current map standard under development is the 1:20000 corporate watershed base (CWB) which uses similar concepts and algorithms to those developed for the 1:50K atlas. The watershed atlas is used for both display and analysis. For display purposes, a generalized version of the atlas "Watershed Lite", was developed. These maps are optimized for speed and form the map backdrop for the BC Fish Wizard. The fish wizard provides web based access to information for anglers (Lake Bathymetry, stocking locations, species distributions, access etc) as well as members of the general public interested in aquatic information.

Other types of analysis include monitoring of land use impacts, defining the status of fish populations, and hydrological modelling of stream discharge, stream widths, and estimating the carrying capacity of streams for various species of fish.

National Road Network Success Story and the PEI Department of Transportation
Dan McDonald
The province of Prince Edward Island has adopted the GeoBase National Road Network (NRN), produced by NRCan's Geomatics for the Sustainable Development of Natural Resources program, as its official provincial road network. The advantages to PEI are many: by working within the national framework of GeoBase, PEI can share in the experience and technical expertise of other GeoBase partners; the province can immediately use the NRN data set for provincial projects such a winter snow removal, sanding operations and emergency preparedness; and the province can benefit from the other GeoBase data sets which are completely aligned with the NRN.

RADARSAT-1 and Landsat Contribution for Sustainable Management of Groundwater Resources
Paule Hébert, Tecsult Inc.

Since LANDSAT-7 images have been proven to be very useful for providing land-use and vegetation maps, we wanted to experiment their use for groundwater characterization purposes in temperate climatic environment. The assessment of groundwater resources is an issue of great importance in Canada and around the world. As freshwater is becoming progressively more in demand, it is necessary to develop new tools to assist hydrogeologists and decision-makers in their work.

For that reason, a development project was initiated by Tecsult with the support of Geological Survey of Canada as a part of the Earth Observation Application Development Program (EOADP) of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The project consisted in evaluating the utility of RADARSAT-1 and LANDSAT-7 imagery, as an input to groundwater resources characterization and management projects. The study area is located in south-eastern of New Brunswick, including parts of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. It covers approximately 15 000 km₂.

Potential contribution can be made to locate springs, update regional bedrock structure, and refine Quaternary deposit maps. This thematic information provides extra layers and can allow a better understanding of aquifer recharge and groundwater flow dynamics.

North American Frameworks and the Commission for Environmental Co-operation
Jürgen Hoth, Commission for Environmental Cooperation

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is an international organization created by Canada, Mexico and the United States to address regional environmental concerns, help prevent potential trade and environmental conflicts, and to promote the effective enforcement of environmental law. As such, it complements the environmental provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Recently, the Atlas frameworks project (GSDNR program) partnered with the CEC and the Atlas programs in the United States (USGS) and Mexico (INEGI) to compile a harmonized set of North American framework data which was released on-line in June 2004 via the GeoConnections Discovery Portal. These frameworks will form the foundation for a growing set of thematic maps depicting cross-border environmental conditions -- the CEC's 'North American Environmental Atlas'.

The first project to utilize the frameworks is the 'Baja to Bering' initiative -- part of the North American Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) program. Existing MPAs are overlaid by range maps of threatened marine species of concern to the three nations. Pilot sites (existing or proposed MPAs) have been identified by each country as focal points for work now underway to develop a set of shared performance indicators (socio-economic and biophysical) and monitoring protocols. This CEC program supports each country's on-going, domestic work to expand the physical network of MPAs within North America.