Activity: Development of Local Geospatial Data Infrastructures as Tools for Land Management

Our Northern stakeholders have expressed a great need for terrain information, especially at larger scales, to enable informed decision-making and development strategies for economic growth and resource management.

In response to this need, this activity has focused on developing, testing and evaluating methodologies for using multi-sensor Earth observation tools like high resolution IKONOS satellite imagery, to produce large scale, fundamental spatial data, that is easily accessible to local and remote users.

Here are some applications where this new methodology has proven useful.

• A collaborative activity between the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) led to the production of large-scale ortho-images and image maps of Sachs Harbour, Holman and Paulatuk by NRCan using IKONOS images provided by the GNWT. The GNWT intends to display community boundaries directly on the imagery.
  
  
• Working with IKONOS data supplied by Parks Canada, NRCan generated fundamental spatial data for a web-based visualization of interactive map views of Akshayuk Pass in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island.
  
  
• Collaborating with the private sector in the Athabasca Oil Sands region in Alberta, NRCan contributed in demonstrating the incorporation of Earth Observation data and geo-spatial technologies into a reference database for monitoring environmental change. Eventually this information will allow data sharing among concerned stakeholders and Canadians in general, wishing to monitor the impacts of energy resource exploration and exploitation in the region.

• Contributions have also been made in the efforts to improve the base topographic data in the Mackenzie Delta, particularly in the generation of a high resolution Digital Elevation Model.
  
  
• Considering the eco-sensitivity of the Northern landscape and the many changes currently underway, work continues on the development and implementation of techniques and methods for detecting and recording the various spatial changes.

For more information about this activity, please contact Costas Armenakis