Land Use Quality Evaluation for Alberta Energy Regulation Pilot

2005 Landsat imagery was analyzed to identify 'bad pixels' caused by sensor noise, clouds, haze, and shadows for a specific energy regulation pilot area. The Alberta Energy Regulator created this quality evaluation dataset to support surface change assessment for energy exploration. It covers a defined region from Township 52 to 70, including towns like Edson and Whitecourt.

Use Cases

• Filtering out misclassified 'bad pixels' (value '1') from 2005 Landsat classification maps to improve downstream analysis accuracy.
• Benchmarking cloud and shadow detection algorithms using the labeled quality evaluation raster for a defined Alberta region.
• Assessing sensor noise patterns in historical satellite imagery over the Play-Based Regulation pilot area spanning multiple townships.
• Validating surface change metrics derived from earth observation data by masking areas flagged with quality issues.

Strengths

• Focuses on a specific pilot area defined by precise township and range coordinates.
• Targets known quality issues: sensor noise, cloud, haze, and shadow artifacts.

Limitations

• Dataset size, row count, and specific image dimensions are unknown.
• Limited to a single year (2005), providing no multi-temporal quality assessment.
• No information on the classification accuracy or validation of the 'bad pixel' labels.

Provenance

Source

Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), Government of Alberta.

Collection Method

Derived from 2005 Landsat earth observation imagery.

Time Range

2005

Freshness

Metadata last updated March 2026, but underlying imagery is from 2005.

Geography

Alberta, Canada, from Township 52, Range 7, W 5th Meridian to Township 70, Range 5, W 6th Meridian, covering towns including Edson, Fox Creek, Mayerthorpe, Whitecourt, Swan Hills, and Valleyview.