739 
Symposium on Remote Sensing for Resources Development and Environmental Management-/ Enschede / August 1986 
f the Spacelab 
Wessling. • • • 
ge, discharge Remote sensmg as a tool for assessing environmental effects 
Sibun rivers ^ 
rt & 126? ’ Land of hydroelectric development in a remote river basin 
W. Murray Paterson & Stewart K. Sears 
Ontario Hydro, Toronto, Canada 
ABSTRACT: The development of new hydroelectric generation projects in Ontario (Canada) requires environmental 
studies to be carried out at various stages in the project life cycle. The feasibility of using remotely-sensed 
LANDSAT satellite data to assist in these studies is assessed based on a pilot project carried out in a remote 
northern Ontario river basin. Results suggest that remote sensing technology offers a potentially effective and 
economical means of collecting, interpreting and presenting environmental information for studies related to 
broad level river basin planning, conceptual assessments, project scoping, impact assessment, and 
post-development project follow-up and monitoring. 
1 INTRODUCTION 
In Ontario (Canada), existing legislation governing 
the planning and development of new hydroelectric 
projects requires environmental studies to be carried 
out at various stages in a project's life cycle. In 
the planning and design phase, studies are undertaken 
to assess the acceptability of selected development 
schemes and to gain approval under Ontario's 
Environmental Assessment Act. During the project 
construction and operation stages, studies are 
conducted to monitor construction activities, to 
verify predicted effects, to check the effectiveness 
of implemented mitigation measures, and to confirm 
the operating integrity of the facility. Completion 
of these studies requires the collection and analysis 
of large volumes of data over an extended period of 
time. The cost and effectiveness of such studies are 
strongly influenced by sampling methods used, and by 
the quality and vintage of available data. 
Much of the remaining, undeveloped hydroelectric 
potential in Ontario is located in remote, northern 
regions of the province. Baseline data acquisition 
and long-term monitoring in these areas can be both 
time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, 
cost-effective means of collecting and maintaining 
"suitable data" are highly desirable. 
Satellite remote sensing technology has been 
recommended as a useful and cost-effective tool for 
performing environmental studies (Ross and 
Singhroy 1983). In order to gain a generic 
assessment of the value of remote sensing, and to 
demonstrate ways the technology could augment or 
improve future environmental studies for 
hydroelectric projects, a pilot project was conducted 
by Ontario Hydro in 1985, in conjunction with the 
Ontario Centre for Remote Sensing (OCRS). The 
project involved mapping a remote study area - the 
15,200 km^ Little Jackfish River (LJR) basin - 
according to a variety of cover types, using 
multi-date LANDSAT MSS satellite data. A series of 
secondary tests were also run on a sub-area of the 
drainage basin to further evaluate the data 
extraction and interpretative capabilities of the 
technology. 
1.1 Study Area 
The LJR basin is located north of Lake Nipigon in 
Ontario (Canada) at about Latitude 50° 23'N, 
Longitude 88° 18'W (Figure 1). The basin is 
physiographically quite uniform and is typical of 
boreal forest environments on the Canadian Shield. 
Ontario Hydro is proposing construction of 
hydroelectric generating facilities on the LJR to 
develop about 132 MW of available hydraulic 
potential. A tentative dam site has been identified 
at approximately 12 km upstream of the river mouth. 
Studies have now entered the detailed environmental 
assessment (EA) phase and station in-service is 
expected in 1993. Results from this remote sensing 
pilot project proved to be very timely for use in the 
current EA studies on the LJR. Their direct use by 
the LJR project team provided an opportunity for some 
hands-on evaluation of the feasibility of using 
remote sensing to assist in project planning and 
development work. 
2 METHOD 
Thematic maps of generalized land cover types were 
produced for the LJR at OCRS basin using digital 
analysis and visual interpretation of LANDSAT 
satellite data. The maps were produced using a 
standard supervised multispectral classification 
technique (Kalensky et al 1981).