Landsat Quality Evaluation Data for Cold Lake Oil Sands Area

Quality evaluation data identifies misclassified pixels in 2008 Landsat imagery of the Cold Lake oil sands region. The dataset flags areas affected by sensor noise, cloud, haze, and cloud shadow as 'bad pixels'. It was produced by the Government of Alberta to support science-based monitoring under the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan.

Use Cases

• Masking cloud-affected pixels in Landsat imagery using the 'bad pixel' flag for clearer composite imagery.
• Assessing classification algorithm performance by comparing results against the quality evaluation 'bad pixel' layer.
• Analyzing the spatial distribution of sensor noise and atmospheric interference within the oil sands monitoring area.
• Supporting cumulative effects studies by providing a cleaned base layer of 2008 land cover data.

Strengths

• Covers a defined geographic area (Townships 56-69, Ranges 1-11 W4M) for focused analysis.
• Provides a direct quality layer ('bad pixels') for a specific year (2008) of Landsat data.

Limitations

• Data is from a single year (2008), limiting temporal analysis and trend detection.
• Specific row/column counts and spatial resolution details are not provided in the input.

Provenance

Source

Government of Alberta

Collection Method

Derived from 2008 Landsat imagery to identify misclassified areas.

Time Range

2008

Freshness

Metadata last updated March 2026, but underlying imagery is from 2008.

Geography

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