A REMOTE SENSING APPROACH TO CREATE A 35 YEAR TIME SERIES OF THE HYDROLOGY OF PERCHED BASINS IN THE PEACE-ATHABASCA DELTA

Abstract

Wood Buffalo National Park is Canada’s largest national park, was established in 1922, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2016, a UNESCO Reactive Monitoring Mission instructed the Government of Canada to prepare and implement an Action Plan to address and mitigate threats to Wood Buffalo National Park’s outstanding universal values from industrial development beyond the park’s boundaries. A key objective of the Wood Buffalo Action Plan’s Science and Monitoring Theme is realized through the application of remotely sensed imagery to classify the hydrological and ecological characteristics of the thousands of open water basins within the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD) that have formed over millennia as a result of seasonal high water from both the Peace and Athabasca Rivers, intermittent extreme floods associated with ice-jam floods, and flow reversals of the Peace River into the PAD. Optical and radar imagery is used to classify and monitor basins within the PAD for inter-seasonal (May to September) and inter-annual (1984-2020) surface water changes, as well as assign wetland habitat classes and hydrological categories of connected, semi-connected or isolated basins. The application of this remote sensing classification provides a foundational design element of an integrated research and ecological monitoring program. Web-based communications products such as interactive maps for public education and use incorporate scientific applications, animations, Indigenous knowledge, as well as comprehensive stories which include narratives, maps, charts, photos, and videos.