Northern Surface Water and Wetlands

Understanding and monitoring Canada’s water is fundamental to the responsible management of this precious resource.  The North’s vastness and remoteness makes this a significant challenge. Satellites are considered to be the most promising means of monitoring the seasonal changes in both freshwater and the state of wetlands, especially in Canada’s North.

Scientists at the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation have developed techniques to use satellite SAR to map the extent of surface water in the arctic.

• Monitoring open fresh water in northern environments, using SAR imagery and FnFCE (PDF, 550 KB)

Today, new techniques to measure surface water level from current and future spaceborne SARs are being developed and validated. 

Satellite data have been combined with surface measurements to identify and manage community water resources in Canada’s North.

• Geomatics information for the watershed serving Iqaluit, Nunavut, using EO data and ground survey (PDF, 800 KB)

Advanced SAR-based techniques are being developed and used to help characterize northern wetlands.

• Polarimetric RADARSAT-2 for Monitoring Canadian Wetlands (PDF, 870 KB)

These techniques are being further developed to measure the transformation of Canada’s peatlands with current and future SAR satellites.