Land Cover Classification for Cold Lake Oil Sands from 2012 Landsat

13 land-use and land-cover classes are mapped for the Cold Lake oil sands region, derived from 2012 Landsat satellite imagery. The dataset was created by the Government of Alberta to support science-based environmental monitoring under the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan. It classifies features including water bodies, forests, developed areas, and fire scars across townships 56 to 69.

Use Cases

• Train a semantic segmentation model to classify 'coniferous forest', 'broad leaf forest', and 'mixed forest' from Landsat imagery.
• Analyze spatial patterns of 'developed areas' and 'mixed developed areas' relative to 'water bodies' for environmental impact assessments.
• Detect and quantify the extent of 'fire scar' and 'exposed land/cut blocks/harvested areas' for disturbance mapping.
• Monitor changes in 'shrub land' and 'grassland' cover over time by using this 2012 classification as a baseline.

Strengths

• Contains 13 distinct land cover classes including specific categories for forestry and development.
• Covers a defined geographic area (Townships 56 to 69, Range 1 to 11) relevant to regional oil sands monitoring.
• Derived from standardized Landsat satellite imagery, ensuring consistent spatial resolution.

Limitations

• Data is from a single year (2012), limiting analysis of trends or recent changes.
• Class '0 - unclassified' may represent areas of missing or uncertain data.
• The raster format and lack of column metadata require GIS expertise for effective use.

Provenance

Source

Government of Alberta

Collection Method

Derived from 2012 Landsat satellite imagery.

Time Range

2012

Freshness

The underlying imagery is from 2012, though the dataset record was updated in 2026.

Geography

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