Vegetation Classification for the West Kitikmeot /Slave Study Region
Organization / Researcher: Northwest Territories Centre for Remote Sensing, Helmut Epp
Length of Project: 4 years (1997-2001)
Personnel Involved: n/a
Total Project Expenditures: $404,975
The Board does not consider this report to be an offical report of the Society, and its contents are the sole responsibility of the author.
Information from Landsat satellite images was analyzed by a computer to make vegetation maps of the region. The project worked in cooperation with the Habitat of Dogrib Traditional Territory: Place names as Indicators of Bio-geographical Knowledge project to produce a joint habitat classification in the Lac de Gras area. This information is useful for all researchers doing wildlife studies in the West Kitikmeot/Slave Study area, as well as for identifying important vegetation / habitat areas and assessing effects of development.
Eight Landsat scenes have been analyzed covering a total area of about 200,000 square km. This area includes most of the WKSS region except for the areas immediately north of Great Slave Lake and parts of the eastern and western edges of the SGP. Nineteen classifications were used: fourteen vegetation units, three unvegetated and two for water. Some scenes do not contain all 19 types. Ground data was gathered from 300 to 500 sites for each scene to provide information for testing and increasing the accuracy of the computer's classification of the satellite imagery. About 150 hours of helicopter time was spent over the four years of the project in collecting ground data through on ground observations and photos from the air. The accuracy assessment from scene to scene varied from 51% to 82% correct.
An analysis of the amount of area under each classification shows certain types such as heath tundra and heath boulder are many times more common than others such as birch seep or esker complex.
These results have been used by several other WKSS wildlife studies in their analysis of habitat use, as well as in assessment and monitoring of some proposed developments.
Vegetation Classification for the West Kitikmeot / Slave Study Region Final Report