Land Disturbance Classification For Cold Lake Oil Sands Area 2008-2009

Land use and land cover change data derived from Landsat multispectral imagery for 2008 and 2009 in Alberta's Cold Lake oil sands region. The Government of Alberta produced this dataset to support science-based monitoring under the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan. It classifies vegetation loss from anthropogenic disturbances into nine distinct categories.

Use Cases

• Quantify vegetation loss from infrastructure development using the 'exposed land/cut blocks/harvested areas' class.
• Monitor land recovery by analyzing changes between the 'transitional bare surfaces' and subsequent vegetation classes like 'shrub land' or 'grassland' over time.
• Assess the spatial extent of anthropogenic disturbance by mapping the 'mixed developed areas' and 'developed areas' classifications.
• Establish baseline conditions for agricultural expansion by identifying 'agricultural areas' within the region.
• Model habitat fragmentation by analyzing the distribution and adjacency of disturbance classes like 'exposed land' and natural land covers.

Strengths

• Derived from Landsat multispectral imagery, a standardized satellite data source.
• Provides a detailed 9-class classification system for land disturbance types.
• Covers a defined geographic region (Townships 56-69, Ranges 1-11 W4M) for focused analysis.
• Created to support a formal regional planning framework (Lower Athabasca Regional Plan).

Limitations

• Temporal coverage is limited to a two-year period (2008-2009).
• Data format (TIFF) may require specialized geospatial software for analysis.
• Classification accuracy is dependent on the source imagery and 2009 land cover data used.

Provenance

Source

Government of Alberta

Collection Method

Classification derived from Landsat multispectral imagery and 2009 land use/cover data.

Time Range

2008-2009

Freshness

Data reflects conditions from 2008-2009, though metadata was updated in 2026.

Geography

Cold Lake oil sands area, Alberta, Canada (Townships 56 to 69, Ranges 1 to 11, west of the 4th Meridian).