Over the past four years two major changes have occurred in 
Canada in terms of publishing. First, the Canadian Remote 
Sensing symposia have been changed from being a refereed 
symposium every eighteen months with delayed publication of 
proceedings to being an annual symposium contributing to the so- 
called unrefereed grey literature produced for distribution at the 
time ofthe symposium. This has all happened at the request of the 
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing which has asked that the 
symposia be held annually to facilitate the networking considered 
to be important forthe continued co-ordination ofthe activities of, 
particularly, the research community as it interacts with industry. 
In an effort to broaden the base for the dissemination of high- 
quality papers and to replace the refereed symposia, the Canadian 
Journal of Remote Sensing has moved from a twice-yearly 
publication to a quarterly publication. With more issues the 
Journal can now feature special issues and more international 
work. 
Canadian Activities Relevant to 
Commission VII Working Groups 
With over 120 companies, twenty universities, twenty govern- 
ment laboratories and one paper a day being published, it is 
impossible to do justice to the program in Canada in remote 
sensing in such a small space. What follows is intended to give an 
overview. Those seeking more information are urged to contact 
the author or RESORS at CCRS. 
Working Group 1 concerns itself with Physical Measurements 
and Signatures in Remote Sensing. An active research program in 
these areas has involved both visible and IR as well as radar in 
Canada. Considerable attention has been paid to the proper 
understanding and calibration of sensors — both airborne and 
spaceborne. Laboratories across Canada from universities and 
government have been involved. 
Working Group 2, chaired by Dr. Pamela Salloway, President of 
PAMAP Technologies of Canada, covers Spatial Information 
Extraction and Manipulation. This area has been a key one in the 
general advancement of the application of image interpretation in 
Canada and elsewhere. Considerable effort has been invested by 
governments, universities and the private sector. This has culmi- 
nated in companies and products which barely existed at the time 
ofthe last ISPRS Congress. A central focus of the work in Canada 
has been on the effective integration of imagery into the GIS 
environment to provide both updates of the GIS and a background 
for vector and thematic information. New products and services 
have already resulted from the research effort in this domain. 
Working Group 3 covers Renewable Resources, such as forestry 
and agriculture. These have been central areas of activity in both 
research and in the development of operational applications. Over 
the past four years the central focus of much ofthe federal research 
in these areas has been on radar applications in preparation for 
Canada’s own RADARSAT planned for launch in the 1994/95 
timeframe. Activities in the provinces have included work 
preparatory for radar as well as the continuation of the application 
of other airborne and spaceborne sensors to inventory and moni- 
toring. A particularly noteworthy activity is headed by the Prov- 
ince of Quebec and industry in a project called PROGERT. The 
project is aimed at developing a high-resolution, solid-state 
airborne sensor with a 6000 pixel swath for forestry applica- 
tions — notably for disease and vegetation stress. 
94 
Working Group 4 deals with Non-Renewable Resources. As with 
Working Group 3, much of the work in this area has involved the 
use of radar. In this case, however, there has been special empha- 
sis on the integration of geophysical data with radar for mineral 
exploration. As well, there is considerable work done within the 
area of oil exploration. As a result of the nature of the work, 
however, very little is published related to the use of remote 
sensing within the oil and mineral exploration private sector. An 
ERIM Specialty Symposium related to these areas was held in 
Calgary within the reporting period. 
Working Group 5 deals with Water and Atmospheric Remote 
Sensing. The atmospheric and ice- related work is centred within 
the federal government's Atmospheric Environment Service, 
with co-ordinated work being done within CCRS and the univer- 
sity community as well. Work on remote sensing related to water 
quality and ocean and lake dynamics has long been a focus of the 
federal departments of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment, 
with scientific support in some areas related to the oceans and 
hydrology being supplied by CCRS. Preparatory work for radar 
imagery from satellites has been a focus of much of the research. 
Private sector capabilities in airborne radar have become the basis 
of a significant part of the operational ice monitoring off the coast 
of eastern Canada. In hydrology work has looked at areas as 
diverse as flood mapping with radar, and modelling water equi- 
valent of snowpacks with radar and other imagery. 
Working Group 6, dealing with Human Settlements, has had 
similar problems to those working in this domain elsewhere. The 
area has not been as well funded as the other areas, although 
significant work has resulted. Methods have been developed to 
monitor and map land use changes using satellite imagery from 
both SPOT and TM, and work has begun on assessing the 
usefulness of ERS-1 radar imagery for urban studies. 
Working Group 7 is chaired by Dr. David Goodenough, Chief 
Scientist of CCRS (currently seconded to Forestry Canada). Work 
in this area has been done within CCRS co-ordinated with a 
number of other laboratories across Canada. The current major 
effort is to develop a new generation of system which can take 
advantage of the concepts of expert systems while also using 
geographic information to improve image interpretation. Con- 
tracts for a prototype system have been let to Canadian industry. 
An Inter-Commission Working Group on Global Monitoring is 
chaired by Dr. Leo Sayn-Wittgenstein, Director General of CCRS. 
In this area Canada has been active in several projects involving 
the developing of a better understanding of the boreal forest and 
frozen environments and their role in global processes. As well, 
Canada is leading an international effort to develop a global 
change encyclopedia which will provide on a CD-ROM a com- 
pendium of information on the global environmental situation, 
much of it derived from space observations. 
Reference: 
Ryerson, R.A., 1991. Remote Sensing in Canada. GEOCARTO 
International, 6(3):79-83.