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Hi Geodata list,<br>
<br>
The forwarded email below may interest Canadians on the list. The
approach described uses only open source software (including the
obvious GDAL/OGR) and mostly uses publicly available geospatial data.<br>
<br>
<br>
Have a nice day,<br>
<br>
Alex<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Alexandre Leroux, M.Sc., Ing.
Environnement Canada / Environment Canada
Centre météorologique canadien / Canadian Meteorological Centre
Section de la réponse aux urgences environnementales /
Environmental Emergency Response Section
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:alexandre.leroux@ec.gc.ca">alexandre.leroux@ec.gc.ca</a></pre>
<br>
<br>
On 11/20/08 15:58, Alexandre Leroux wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4925CF6A.8030102@ec.gc.ca" type="cite"><br>
Dear GeoNET list,<br>
<br>
I wanted to inform you of an article recently accepted for publication
that could interest several of you. The article is named "Automated
Urban Land Use and Land Cover Classification for Mesoscale Atmospheric
Modeling over Canadian Cities" and will be on this ftp site for the
next two weeks:
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="ftp://depot.cmc.ec.gc.ca/upload/eer/people/Alex/lerouxa_urban-lulc_geomatica_v081120.pdf">ftp://depot.cmc.ec.gc.ca/upload/eer/people/Alex/lerouxa_urban-lulc_geomatica_v081120.pdf</a>
<br>
<br>
It is important to take into account that the approach described in
this article is our 'old approach' developed about three years ago. We
plan to update it by using CanVec (replacing the NTDB), SRTM-DEM
CSI-CGIAR v4, Census 2006 and newly available 3D urban buildings for
several Canadian cities. Our 'old results' are 44 urban classes at a
5-m spatial resolution for all major Canadian cities. The resulting
classification is, in our opinion, quite interesting for urban areas
(can be automatically generated for anywhere in Canada, but does not
provide good results in non-urban areas).
<font color="#993300">The process is fully automated and very
flexible
(e.g. can easily be modified and augmented to suit other needs than
atmospheric modeling). The approach is simple and mostly uses publicly
available data at its core and only open source software, so it is
rather easy to duplicate the process.</font><br>
<br>
Here's the abstract:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">An
automated
geospatial databases processing approach has been developed in order to
characterize urban areas of major Canadian cities for their use in
mesoscale atmospheric
modeling. Mesoscale atmospheric numerical models, including urban
canopy models such as the Town Energy Balance (TEB) model, require
surface characteristics to represent surface
processes occurring in cities. The developed methodology uses the
following pan-Canadian databases: the National Topographic Data Base
(NTDB) vector data for land use and land
cover (LULC) characterization, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
(SRTM-DEM) and the
Canadian Digital Elevation Data (CDED1) digital elevation models (DEM)
for building height assessment, and census data for characteristics of
residential districts. These databases are
jointly processed to automatically generate a high-resolution urban
LULC classification for
Canadian cities.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">The
processing establishes the NTDB vector layer priority while making use
of some of the feature attributes. To complete the information derived
from the NTDB database, additional processing is done such as a
population density measurement and an optional building height
assessment. The final classes will be used, by means of an associative
process, to specify the inputs for urban meteorological modeling.
Results over Montreal and Vancouver are presented, with a discussion of
their benefits and limitations. The approach compares favorably to
previously available LULC classifications for mesoscale atmospheric
modeling in
Canada (e.g. Lemonsu et al., 2006 & 2008) and the main added
benefits that this approach has are (a) Canada-wide applicability with
available continuous databases, and (b) complete automation, with the
exception of optional post-processing. <br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Have a nice day,<br>
<br>
Alex<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Alexandre Leroux, M.Sc., Ing.
Environnement Canada / Environment Canada
Centre météorologique canadien / Canadian Meteorological Centre
Section de la réponse aux urgences environnementales /
Environmental Emergency Response Section
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:alexandre.leroux@ec.gc.ca">alexandre.leroux@ec.gc.ca</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
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