Arctic Highway Orthomosaic and Elevation Model 2019

396 linear kilometers of Arctic highway corridors were surveyed in 2019 using a remotely piloted aircraft system. The project produced orthomosaic imagery and a digital elevation model covering over 51,000 hectares of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk and Dempster highways. This data provides a baseline for measuring infrastructure and landscape changes in ice-rich permafrost terrain.

Use Cases

• Measure road infrastructure changes over time using the orthomosaic and digital elevation model.
• Analyze landscape change and potential fish habitat alteration along highway embankments and culverts.
• Assess the impact of environmental and climatic regimes on Arctic highway corridors.
• Use the high-resolution imagery to monitor permafrost terrain stability around bridges and embankments.

Strengths

• High spatial resolution imagery of less than 10 cm per pixel.
• Covers a combined 396 linear kilometers of highway corridors.
• Surveys over 51,000 hectares of Arctic terrain, providing a detailed baseline.
• Represents an early non-military beyond-visual-line-of-sight RPAS project of this scale.

Limitations

• Data is from a single time period (2019), limiting longitudinal change analysis without follow-up surveys.
• Focus is limited to two specific highway corridors in Canada's western Arctic, not a broader regional survey.
• Primary deliverables are geospatial files (SHP, ESRI REST), requiring GIS expertise for full analysis.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Collection Method

Data acquired via long-range RPAS (Griffon SeaHunter with DSLR sensor) missions for photogrammetric processing.

Time Range

July-August 2019

Freshness

Data collected in 2019; metadata last updated in 2026.

Geography

Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk (ITH) and Dempster highways in Canada's western Arctic.