PART III - REPORT ON CANADIAN ACTIVITIES 
RELEVANT TO COMMISSION VII 
Introduction 
With the breadth and depth of effort, trying to summarize 
Canada's remote sensing activities related to image interpretation 
is now virtually impossible. The balance of this report attempts 
to place the work in Canada related to Commission VII in the 
appropriate context, reporting on the dominant trends, Com- 
mission VII activities, the Canadian setting for image inter- 
pretation activities, and research and publishing activities. 
Dominant Trends 
As reported to the ISPRS in 1988 by Dr. S. Pala, remote sensing 
in Canada has continued to move from the research and develop- 
ment stage to the operational stage. This has been facilitated by a 
broader penetration of geographic information systems (GIS) into 
the resource management field and stronger programs in data 
marketing, technology transfer and industrial development. 
Current research and development focuses on applications of 
C-band radarin preparation for RADARSAT, information extrac- 
tion using as tools expert systems and information integration 
through GIS. Also central to Canadian efforts has been spectro- 
scopy and image corrections (both geometric and radiometric). In 
addition, monitoring of large-scale phenomena is being planned 
as part of Canada's contribution to global environmental moni- 
toring. Of particularimportance in this regard is the close attention 
being paid to calibration and image corrections appropriate for 
NOAA and other data sources whose nature is not always properly 
considered in large-scale monitoring. 
Technology transfer and training activities continue to focus on 
bringing remote sensing to users in Canada and overseas. Much of 
the activity within Canada in this area is being done at the 
provincial level by remote sensing centres, academic institutions, 
centres of excellence, and, increasingly, by the private sector. At 
the national level, a program to better assist the Canadian Inter- 
national Development Agency (CIDA) in using remote sensing is 
now in place through a Memorandum of Understanding between 
the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) and CIDA. This 
has already strengthened Canada's ability to deliver effective 
international programs. Other activities of note include the Global 
Change Encyclopedia (Geoscope) headed by Canada, and 
Canada’s significant support to the Third Edition of the Manual of 
Remote Sensing by providing the Editor-in-Chief. 
Commission VII International Activities in Canada 
Canada, through its ISPRS member society, the Canadian 
Institute of Surveying and Mapping, has been given the responsi- 
bility for Commission VII under the leadership of Mr. Frank 
Hegyi, President of Ferihill Technologies Ltd. of Victoria, British 
Columbia. 
In 1990 Canada hosted the mid-term symposium on Global and 
Environmental Monitoring in Victoria attended by some 400 
specialists from around the world. Two publications are the result. 
One is the 912-page symposium proceedings published as the 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 
Vol 28, Part 7-1. The second (currently being produced by the 
University of Waterloo) relates remote sensing to global monitor- 
ing from a Canadian perspective, encompassing invited papers 
from a number of leaders in remote sensing in Canada. 
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The various working groups of the Commission have been busy, 
with Canadians leading several of these and contributing to the 
others. The spirit of international co-operation has marked the 
activities of all of the Commission VII working groups. This is 
something in which the world-wide ISPRS community should 
take pride. We in Canada have been honoured to have been active 
participants with our scientific colleagues from all continents. We 
are particularly pleased with the growing involvement of partici- 
pants from regions and countries which have not been tradition- 
ally active in Commission VII. We hope that this is a trend which 
will continue to increase during the next four years. The regional 
seminar and reporting work by Working Group 6, headed by Dr. 
Bruce Forster of Australia, has been a particularly useful model 
which should be encouraged in the future. 
The Canadian Setting for Image Interpretation 
Over the reporting period Canada's remote sensing activities 
related to image interpretation have continued to grow, even in the 
face of the economic uncertainty of the last two years. This is in 
part the case because of a concentration on exports and inter- 
national activities by an efficient industry. and in part because 
GIS/RS linkages have been maturing at a rate only a few of us 
would have predicted a few years ago. 
There are now over 120 private and public companies involved in 
the field in one capacity or another. They range from large multi- 
national companies to small one- or two-person consultancies 
(For a detailed summary, see Ryerson, 1991). Four universities 
offer Ph.D. degrees with specialization in the field, while another 
twenty offer extensive programs at the masters level or senior 
undergraduate level. As well, over twenty government laborato- 
ries are involved in a large, generally well co-ordinated research, 
development and technology transfer program in remote sensing. 
Current estimates place as many as 3000 private-sector employ- 
ees working in the field, with as much as 50-70% of all activity 
being exported or done overseas. A recent review of the general 
organizational framework and situation of remote sensing in 
Canada has been published elsewhere (Ryerson, 1991). That work 
summarizes the reasons for Canada’s success, the government 
agencies involved, the work in academe, the role of industry, and 
the focus of industry’s activity. 
Research and Publishing Activities 
According to estimates prepared by the CCRS RESORS System, 
Canadians have published one contribution per working day from 
1988 to the present — a total of over 1000 papers. It is obviously 
impossible to summarize the range and depth of that work in any 
substantive way for this report. The balance of this section 
outlines the type of work being done and the focus within the 
topical areas dealt with by each of the seven Commission VII 
working groups and the Inter-Commission Working Group. 
An analysis of the papers published shows that in four major 
applications-oriented journals, Remote Sensing of Environment, 
International Journal of Remote Sensing, Photogrammetric 
Engineerin ing, and the Canadian Journal of 
Remote Sensing, approximately 100 papers have been published 
by Canadian researchers. These have covered all of the major 
areas of interest of Commission VII. In addition, many more 
papers have been published in a range of journals which are more 
related to technology issues involving spatial information extrac- 
tion and expert systems.