Canadian arctic shoreline mapping using RADARSAT-2 and optical data through object-based classification

Environment Canada has an important role in preparing for environmental emergencies along the coast. Despite this, there is a significant information gap regarding the shoreline types found in the Canadian Arctic, compared to more southern regions. As such, the focus of this analysis was to assess the potential for accurate classification of a number of shoreline types using an object-based approach. Two study areas were assessed, including: Richards Island, Northwest Territories and Ivvavik, Yukon. For the former an overall accuracy of 74% was achieved, while for the latter average accuracy was 63%. Overall potential was observed for discrimination of some general land cover types. Future work will focused on continued testing of these methods, as part of future investigations under Environment Canada´s Emergency Spatial Pre-SCAT for Arctic Coastal Ecosystems (eSPACE) project.