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Full Name
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RVCA Landcover
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Abstract
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RVCA’s land cover mapping (1:5000) represents the physical landscape using 8 distinct land cover classes. In addition to a land cover class, an individual feature may be detailed with subclass information (for example, “Wooded Area” as the class and “Plantation” as the subclass). Currently, RVCA’s land cover mapping represents the landscape during 2008, 2014 and 2019/20 within a single dataset. Features representing change about the landscape are attributed with class and subclass information for all three dates, providing a seamless time-series map of the watershed.
This dataset has been under development since 2009 (Phase 1). As a starting point, legacy provincial mapping (representing a range of historical dates) for transportation, authorized aggregate sites, water, forest, and wetland were assembled into a preclassified map. Updates to this mapping were made using industry standard heads-up digitizing workflows. Interpretations of georeferenced orthoimagery (DRAPE 2008 and 2014) helped to update legacy mapping and capture additional classes (settled areas, meadow/thicket, and crop and pasture). Over a six-year period, RVCA produced up-to-date land cover mapping of its watershed, which represents the leaf-out season of 2008.
Starting in 2015, updates to RVCA’s 2008 land cover data were made using DRAPE 2014 imagery and marked the beginning of RVCA’s land cover monitoring program (Phase 2). This major update captured change about the landscape from 2008 to 2014 and helped to refine the mapping of existing features (mapping and attribution). With reference to a 2014 image, features mapped in 2008 that showed change were cut up into new features to better represent the current landscape. A new feature was attributed with land cover class and subclass information for both image dates and marked as “real change”. This provided a seamless land cover map detailing the distribution of each land cover class for both dates in one dataset.
A more recent update (Phase 3) incorporated changes about the landscape with reference to DRAPE 2019/20. This update followed a similar workflow as Phase 2 and produced the most up-to-date land cover mapping for RVCA’s administrative and scientific boundaries. A feature that changed from 2008 to 2014, may have also changed in 2020, these dynamics are captured in the attribute table by including class and subclass for all three image dates. Prior to Phase 3, updates to the land cover data also included a simplification of its data model (further detailed below). These changes were seen to improve the reliability of the data and will help to streamline its maintenance.
Previous versions of RVCA’s land cover data used two wetland classes; Evaluated and Unevaluated. The most recent version uses a single wetland land cover class, and now uses subclass information to differentiate between treed and open water wetland only. This is the most significant database schema change, which was implemented prior to the Phase 3 update. Other revisions included changes at the subclass level.
Future updates to this data will likely include refined wetland and settled area boundaries, based on recently derived LiDAR elevation terrain models. Additional changes about the landscape will be incorporated when reference data/imagery becomes available (DRAPE 2026 or other data sources).
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Feature Type
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Polygon
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Location
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RVCA_GIS
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Feature Dataset
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RVCA_Landcover
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Geographic Extent
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Rideau Valley Watershed
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Maintenance Status
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Ongoing (in progress)
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Horizontal Datum
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North American Datum 1983 (EPSG: 6269)
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Vertical Datum
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Spatial Projection
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NAD 83 - UTM Zone 18N (EPSG: 26918)
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Access Constraint
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RVCA Standard Data Licence v1
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Use Constraint
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In accordance with standard license agreement
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Citation
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Produced using information under License with the RVCA © Rideau Valley Conservation Authority
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Agency Originator
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Agency Distributor
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Online Linkage
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https://rvcagis.github.io/jkan/datasets/rvca-landcover/
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Methodology
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This dataset has been under development since 2009 (Phase 1). As a starting point, legacy provincial mapping (representing a range of historical dates) for transportation, authorized aggregate sites, water, forest, and wetland were assembled into a preclassified map. Updates to this mapping were made using industry standard heads-up digitizing workflows. Interpretations of georeferenced orthoimagery (DRAPE 2008 and 2014) helped to update legacy mapping and capture additional classes (settled areas, meadow/thicket, and crop and pasture). Over a six-year period, RVCA produced up-to-date land cover mapping of its watershed, which represents the leaf-out season of 2008. Phase 2 included updates to the data referencing DRAPE 2014, and Phase 3 DRAPE 2019/20.
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Supplimental Info
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Related Documents
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Related Records
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