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5. PILOT STUDY 
A pilot study sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency 
was carried out in 1989 by Photosur Geomat Inc. in association with Shully 
I. Solomon and Associates Limited. The pilot study investigated, in 
depth, the user requirements and defined the system lay-out as well as the 
objectives and the design of the next phase of the project. It also 
carried out a series of pilot applications of SICA to cartography, 
agrometeorology and hydrology. 
The cartography application consisted in the updating of a 1:100 000 map 
and the tracing of elevation contours on a 1:100 000 map using SPOT 
stereographic imagery. 
The agrometeorological application consisted in comparative conventional 
and computerized mapping of agrometeorological inputs and outputs related 
to the estimation of moisture deficits occuring in an average year in the 
area of the lake of Valencia. 
The hydrometeorological application consisted on the calibration and 
validation in space and time of the distributed hydrological model 
developed by Solomon and Associates. The Caura River basin for which the 
application was carried out has about 40,000 km2, and has only three 
usable precipitation stations. In spite of this the model was capable of 
reconstituting past daily flows with an accuracy of about 28 % for 
calibration, validation in time, and validation in space (see figure 2). 
A more detailed presentation of this application is given in reference 3. 
The pilot study lead also to the establishment of the scope of the work of 
the SICA II Project which is described in the Appendix.