In July and August of 2019, a remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) project was undertaken in Canada’s western Arctic along the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk (ITH) and Dempster highways. The objective of this project was to test long-range RPAS missions for photogrammetric data acquisition and processing of these two Arctic highway corridors with embankments, bridges and culverts at risk of changing environmental and climatic regimes. The imagery was used to derive an orthomosaic and digital elevation model that could be used to measure road infrastructure and landscape change over time (e.g., fish habitat). The RPAS missions were conducted with a Griffon SeaHunter and full-frame DSLR sensor and scoped to obtain <10 cm spatial resolution imagery along a combined 396 linear km. The final deliverables covered over 22,000 ha and 29,000 ha for the ITH and Dempster Highways, respectively, and represent one of the first non-military beyond-visual-line-of-sight RPAS data products of its kind and scale in Canada, and likely elsewhere. At the time of collection the data constituted the most current and detailed photo surveys of two of Canada’s most northern highways constructed over ice-rich permafrost terrain, and will provide a valuable baseline to study past and future landscape change.

In July and August of 2019, a remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) project was undertaken in Canada’s western Arctic along the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk (ITH) and Dempster highways. The objective of this project was to test long-range RPAS missions for photogrammetric data acquisition and processing of these two Arctic highway corridors with embankments, bridges and culverts at risk of changing environmental and climatic regimes. The imagery was used to derive an orthomosaic and digital elevation model that could be used to measure road infrastructure and landscape change over time (e.g., fish habitat). The RPAS missions were conducted with a Griffon SeaHunter and full-frame DSLR sensor and scoped to obtain <10 cm spatial resolution imagery along a combined 396 linear km. The final deliverables covered over 22,000 ha and 29,000 ha for the ITH and Dempster Highways, respectively, and represent one of the first non-military beyond-visual-line-of-sight RPAS data products of its kind and scale in Canada, and likely elsewhere. At the time of collection the data constituted the most current and detailed photo surveys of two of Canada’s most northern highways constructed over ice-rich permafrost terrain, and will provide a valuable baseline to study past and future landscape change.

Digital terrain model (DTMRAW) is an expression of the bare earth orthometric elevation (m). Available here as a DTM raster (GeoTIF) with a 5 m pixel resolution. Download: HereThe Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment, Forest Service Branch, has developed a forest resource inventory (FRI) which meets a variety of strategic and operational planning information needs for the boreal plains. Such needs include information on the general land cover, terrain, and growing stock (height, diameter, basal area, timber volume and stem density) within the provincial forest and adjacent forest fringe. This inventory provides spatially explicit information as 10 m or 20 m raster grids and as vectors polygons for relatively homogeneous forest stands or naturally non-forested areas with a 0.5 ha minimum area and a 2.0 ha median area.  Digital terrain model (DTMRAW) is an expression of the bare earth orthometric elevation (m). DTMRAW is available here as a color-mapped 16-bit unsigned integer raster grid in GeoTIFF format with a 5 m pixel resolution. An ArcGIS Pro layer file (*.lyrx) is supplied for viewing DTMRAW data in the following 50 m elevation intervals. Domain: [NULL, 200…1500]. RANGE LABEL RED GREEN BLUE 200 <= DTMRAW < 225 200 27 94 32 225 <= DTMRAW < 275 250 51 113 51 275 <= DTMRAW < 325 300 76 131 70 325 <= DTMRAW < 375 350 100 150 89 375 <= DTMRAW < 425 400 124 169 108 425 <= DTMRAW < 475 450 148 188 127 475 <= DTMRAW < 525 500 173 206 146 525 <= DTMRAW < 575 550 197 225 165 575 <= DTMRAW < 625 600 226 232 127 625 <= DTMRAW < 675 650 255 238 88 675 <= DTMRAW < 725 700 255 203 63 725 <= DTMRAW < 775 750 255 167 38 775 <= DTMRAW < 825 800 188 126 55 825 <= DTMRAW < 875 850 121 85 72For more information, see the Forest Inventory Standard of the Saskatchewan Environmental Code, Forest Inventory Chapter.