2006 User Conference
May 30 and May 31

 

General

The 2006 Northern GIS Conference was held May 30 and May 31, 2006 at the University of Northern British Columbia. The main portion of the conference was held on Wednesday, May 31 and featured: presentations, posters, vendors, coffee, lunch and an evening social. In addition, a variety of workshops were held on Tuesday, May 30.

 

Presentations
Wednesday, May 31

An Integrated Geospatial Solution for 3-D Modeling Using Ground-based LiDAR
Robert Magai, Ph.D. Research Scientist, Selkirk Geospatial Research Center.

This paper describes an integrated geospatial solution that has been used to capture a structural model using a combination of technologies. The solution involves processing LiDAR data and digital photography to reconstruct a 3-D model of a cliff face.

LiDAR is rapidly becoming an important mapping tool in the geospatial community. This is because of the capabilities that this new leading edge technology offers to the mapping profession. LiDAR technology is capable of accurately georeferencing terrain features.

LiDAR being a versatile technology has numerous applications, one of which is terrain mapping. This technology is a very cost effective method of terrain data collection, particularly in inaccessible areas. Hence, OPTEC’s ILRIS laser scanner was used to map a water intake channel at the Keenleyside Dam, Castlegar, BC in a 3-D environment.

It has been observed that LiDAR and digital photography, though to some degree are competing technologies, complement each other and their integration leads to more accurate and complete products. The incorporation of the two technologies opens up new areas of research and application development.

Applications of GIS technologies in a First Nations environment
Steven DeRoy, GIS Advisor

The Treaty 8 Tribal Association (T8TA) acts as a central coordinator, facilitator and technical support provider on a variety of issues as mandated by the Council of Treaty 8 Chiefs. T8TA represents six First Nations communities in north-eastern British Columbia: Doig River First Nation; Fort Nelson First Nation; Halfway River First Nation; Prophet River First Nation; Saulteau First Nations; and West Moberly First Nations. All of the communities have identified the need to incorporate geographic information technologies into their daily practice for reviewing and responding to crown land referrals, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of the numerous relationships for the purposes of treaty negotiations and natural resource management. This presentation will explore the successes and challenges of incorporating GIS into a First Nations environment.

ArcGIS - The Road Ahead
Brian Greening, ESRI Canada

This is a technology/user-focused seminar that will discuss the progression from the current ArcGIS 9.1 product suite to the upcoming ArcGIS 9.2 release. There will be something for users from all industries in this session as many user-requested enhancements will be demonstrated. Also featured will be the evolution of the Geodatabase and integration and consolidation of products coming at 9.2. This is a 45 minute interactive seminar session where questions and feedback will be encouraged.

Base Map OnLine Store
Amin M. Kassam, Director Base Mapping and Geomatic Services, Integrated Land Management Bureau

BCGS Online Search Application for TRIM Based Map Products
Jeff Warwick, President - Clover Point Cartographics

Victoria GIS consulting firm, Clover Point Cartographics, is pioneering ease of access to BC TRIM based maps and value added map products geared towards pubic and private sector, industry, tourism, and the general public. The 1st phase of a new web based application makes the BCGS grid readily searchable, complementing distribution of the 7,000-plus province wide series of 1:20,000 scale BC map products. This online distribution axis provides different versions of inexpensive custom or static, plotted and digital raster image map products developed by Clover Point Cartographics and presents an opportunity to incorporate fully developed TRIM based maps into a project within a window of time and budget not previously enjoyed.

Building Adaptive Community Capacity through Data Sharing
Don Morgan, Executive Director, Northwest Data Sharing Network, Smithers, British Columbia

Data Management, Intergration and Submission
Bart Wagner, Refined Logic

Learn to see the trees for the forest with DNN Data Manager. Refined Logic has developed a dynamic task based data entry platform that solves the information overload problem. With this tasked based data management solution, only relevant forms, records, fields, and values are shown. Gone is the clutter of heavily overloaded forms, reducing training time, and increasing productivity. DNN Data Manager will allow you to import, translate, clean, and validate the data against a published schema as a batch process, simplifying the end product. The custom template solution provides the dynamic translation between any handheld data, existing or manual entry to any RDMS or XML submission. The application uses AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) which increases interactivity and responsiveness, resulting in a user experience similar to desktop applications.

Designing Community Based Datasharing Nodes
Scott Emmons, University of Northern BC

Forgotten Trails On the Edge Of Town:
Using GIS to Promote Recreation Just Outside Smithers
Morgan Hite

To publicize historic trails just outside town, the Northeast Slope Trails Group of Smithers needed both poster-sized maps for trailheads, and brochure-sized maps that could be distributed to the public. Brochure maps had to work in black & white as well as colour, to allow low-cost distribution through photocopying. Complicating matters, trail features would have to stand out against a busy, multi-hued, multi-valued orthophoto mosaic that was chosen as the background of the map. Poster maps and brochures were generated in MapInfo. Bright yellows and greens were employed for almost all features to overcome the orthophoto, and an oblique transverse Mercator projection allowed maximum trails area coverage by placing one map edge parallel to the rail yards at the bottom of the slope. For the brochure cover, 3DEM was used to generate a 3D view of the mountain with trails draped on it. A second round of mapping is similar fashion was done for the trails found within the adjacent Smithers Community Forest. Present efforts are directed toward making KMZ files available on the web for the two trail networks, enabling users with the popular and free Google Earth to view a 3D model of the mountain draped with the trails.

Including Aboriginal Values in Resource Management Through Enhanced Geospatial Communication
Nancy Elliot and Alex Hawley, University of Northern BC and Roslyn Pokiak, Halfway River First Nation

Maps and Geographic Information System(s) (GIS) are designed to represent the world schematically for specific applications.  These approaches reflect the values, perceptions, and priorities of a Western Scientific worldview.  This worldview can be very different from a traditional Aboriginal worldview. The current approaches used by mapping, GIS and related geospatial technologies fail to include Aboriginal values without manipulating and altering the content and context of Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK). Maps and GIS may actually hinder the communication of traditional Aboriginal worldviews to resource managers and planners.    

This presentation summarizes a collaborative project involving Halfway River First Nation (HRFN) and researchers at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC).  The project had the goal of evaluating and enhancing the capacity to incorporate a traditional Aboriginal worldview in modern resource management and planning using innovative geospatial approaches.  We have been successful in creating the Geographic Valuation System (GVS), a system which is designed to enable First Nations to participate in resource management planning and decisions in a way that is simultaneously a) consistent with the mapping and Geographic Information System-based approaches of government and industry resource managers and b) accommodates traditional Aboriginal values and approaches in resource management deliberations and decisions.  The system facilitates and streamlines resolution of resource management issues that relate to First Nation’s interests because it enables First Nations to participate as they choose in resource management and planning in ways meaningful to them and consistent with their traditional values.  The GVS is not a one-off, HRFN-only system.  It is designed and structured to be useful to any First Nation that wishes to use it.  We have planned the system so that it could be freely and openly available as Open Source software, a key factor contributing to its utility to other First Nations. 

Integrated Cadastral Information Society
Ken Rigler, Lead GIS Coordinator, ICI Society

The topics covered will be:

Kootenay Spatial Data Partnership
Peter Lewis

Land and Resource Data Warehouse Service overview
Al Becker, Project Director, LRDW

The LRDW provides easy access to consolidated data from multiple land and resource agencies. The LRDW provides tools and services to: discover what information is available; view, query, analyze, and print data; and download data. The LRDW is available to government users, industry (with BCEID) and the general public. Security policies allow data to be made available for specific users based on data sharing agreements.

Leveraging Metadata for the Effective Delivery of Resource Information
Norman Helewa, Senior Data Administrator and Elaine Dawson, Manager, Land & Resource Data Administration, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Integrated Land Management Bureau

To improve access to the Provinces spatial data assets the Integrated Land Management Bureau (ILMB), has developed a corporate metadata e-service called the Discovery Service, to enable one-stop shopping of land and resource descriptive information. ILMBs Discovery Service, is compliant with the ISO standard for metadata and accesses a warehouse of metadata records that have been consolidated from multiple applications and standards. The effort to date, has consolidated over 13,000 metadata records from the Ministries of the Environment, Forests and Range, Energy and Mines, the former Land Information BC and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The Discovery Service, is also integrated into a number of related applications, including the Distribution and iMAP services and the Natural Resources Canada’s Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) Discovery Portal.
Clients can use the Discovery Service to:

The Discovery Service is one of the enablers in support of ILMBs direction to provide leadership in the natural resource sector and facilitate access to government information and services.

Meeting Emergency Management Geospatial Information Needs in Northern BC
Mark Sondheim, Integrated Land Management Bureau and Steve Botham, Regional District of Fraser-Fort George

The Regional District of Fraser – Fort George is in the process of setting up an E911 and disaster management center that will cover more than one-third the area of British Columbia. Because of the huge geographic scope and the very rural character of much of the area, the RDFFG must meet geospatial information needs that are fundamentally different from the norm. In particular, the kinds of available data must be expanded considerably beyond the primary road network to include sites (house locations, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure features, etc.) and a broad range of geobase data sets (resource roads, hydrography, orthophotos, administrative boundaries and the like). To meet needs associated with both compilation of the sites data and the ongoing quality assurance of all of the data, the technical means must be put into place that will support collaboration of local communities, the regional districts and the Province. This project primarily involves the development of Web-enabled applications to support such data compilation and quality assurance. These locally run applications will interface with servers in Prince George and Victoria that will provide access to the required data and services. The project is funded by GeoConnections, the Province, and the Regional District.

Plan-Net (title TBA)
Dave Leman

Publicly accessible GIS: iMapBC and the WMS Service
Chris Spicer, Head, Access Services

iMapBC provides members of the public access to search, view, query and print a wide range of data sets maintained by various ministries within government. Some popular data sets include TRIM Base, Forest Cover, Cadastre, Administrative Boundaries (i.e. Native Reserves) and the like. Over 900+ layers of information are available through the application depending on user access privileges. This self service tool allows users to perform a variety of standard mapping tasks, including query and plot generation. The tool can also be customized and deployed to meet specific client business needs directly through a user's web browser.

The Web Feature Service is a source for Land and Resource Data that can be accessed directly by any public GIS user. Users can view provincial Base information and orthophotography directly in their ArcMap session with no special permissions.

The City of Terrace’s NEW Public Map Site!
Mary Ann Shannon, The City of Terrace and Chris Majewski and Kevin Whitlock, Pacific Alliance Technologies

The City of Terrace and Pacific Alliance would like to present the City’s NEW
hosted public map site at the Northern GIS conference. The presentation will
outline the business drivers, requirements, evolution of the project, and the
delivered solution detailing the realized and future perceived benefits to the City
and its constituents. Furthermore, the City will also discuss future plans for the
site. The demonstration will highlight a gamut of technologies from Bentley,
Autodesk, and Pacific Alliance.

The Integrated Land and Resource Registry (ILRR)
Rosa Munzer, Manager Operations and Projects, Integrated Land and Resource Registry, Integrated Land Management Bureau
http://www.ilrr.ca

Known users, which includes government users and external users who qualify for a BCeID (industry), have access not only the map viewer, but also to a wide range of features in the ILRR application which include: the ability to quickly look up and query spatial information about interests and survey parcels; to create status reports; and to create, save and share custom queries and to request notification of changes relative to their query parameters.

Tsilhqotín Stewardship Planning Portal: putting planning
power in communities
Sam Zirnhelt

Spatial and multitemporal modelling of carbon stocks and sequestration with forest cover data and Landsat imagery in central British Columbia
Darren T. Janzen, University of Northern BC

In the past decade the issue of carbon (C) sequestration in forests has become an important management consideration and will be increasingly important in coming years as the Kyoto protocol is implemented. Specific knowledge of the impacts of forest management activities is required to include forest management in our national C budget.

The Aleza Lake Research Forest, located in central British Columbia, has the longest historical record of research oriented forest management in the province. A study was established in this forest to map past and present C stocks. Extensive field sampling was performed to determine current aboveground and belowground C stocks for all ecosystem components. A series of Landsat imagery was obtained and related to field sampled measurements through regression analysis to create spatial predictions of past and present C stocks. Uncertainty analyses and spatial autocorrelation analyses were used to generate landscape level estimates of total C stocks in biomass and woody debris.

Harvesting activities over the last eleven years have accounted for a loss of 39.9 ± 5.1 Gg C while mature and regenerating stands have accounted for a gain of 31.1 ± 20.1 Gg C, resulting in a net loss of 8.7 ± 20.9 Gg C.

Using Geographically Referenced GIS Forest Inventory to Manage the Implications of the Mountain Pine Beetle Infestation
Doug Beckett, Regional Timber Supply Analyst, Ministry of Forests and Range and Ministry Responsible for Housing, Northern Interior Forest Region

The presentation will be in two parts.

The first part provides a brief provincial perspective of the Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic:

A harvest forecast, prepared by the Ministry of Forests and Range Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch (FAIB), encompassing 20 of the Province's Timber Supply Areas (TSAs) is presented. This harvest forecast indicates the combined Allowable Annual Cut (AAC) has been increased from 39.4 million, prior to any Mountain Pine Beetle AAC Uplifts, to 51.2 million cubic metres per year. Following the uplift period, the harvest level is projected to decline to 26.5 to 34.0 million cubic metres per year for these 20 TSA's - depending on which assumptions end up best representing what happens in the future. The overview includes discussion as to why these harvest forecast projections appear more favourable than it will likely be.

The second part introduces a crude example of how Geographically Referenced GIS Forest Inventory can be used to assess the implications of harvest decisions. Then, to use the Geographically Referenced GIS Forest Inventory to develop guidance to assist forest planners in minimizing the negative social and environmental implications of the Mountain Pine Beetle Infestation.

Volumetric Change of Kwadacha Glacier, Northern Rocky Mountains, British Columbia, Canada
Stacy Porter

Identifying changing glacier extents from aerial photography and satellite images is commonplace, while it is more challenging to estimate volume changes.

Volumetric change for the Kwadacha Glacier was determined by comparing Digital Elevation Models (DEM) from various years. The oldest DEM was created from airphotos taken in 1949. The second DEM was available from B.C. provincial Terrain Resource Information Management (TRIM I) data (1986). Between 1949 and 1986, the terminus of Kwadacha Glacier thinned by 60m, and in some places up to 100m. Poor contrast did not allow us to produce DEM for the accumulation zone of the glacier for the year 1949.

We are currently analyzing a third DEM that was produced during the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) in 2000. Preliminary results indicate that volume losses in the ablation zone of Kwadacha glacier were greater during the period 1986-2000 compared to the period 1949-1986.

Wonderful Wide World of Geocaching
Greg Jonuk, Tenures Technician, Ministry of Forests and Range

Geocaching is one of the world’s fastest growing activities that appeals to many people because of how it combines modern technology, human ingenuity, outdoor pursuit, and a thrill for adventure. Geocaching has the capacity to boost your GPS navigation skills while advancing your problem solving skills and getting some valuable exercise and family time in to boot.

The presentation will include:

 

Posters and Vendor Displays
Wednesday, May 31

Base Map Online Store, Integrated Land Management Bureau
http://ilmbwww.gov.bc.ca/bmgs/ecommerce-intro.html

Cansel Survey Equipment
http://www.cansel.ca/

Cloverpoint Cartographics Ltd.
http://www.cloverpoint.com

Genus RMT
http:// www.genusrmt.com

Integrated Land Management Bureau Overview
http://ilmbwww.gov.bc.ca/ilmb/index.html

Industrial Reproductions Ltd.
http:// www.irl.bc.ca

Meeting Emergency Management Geospatial Information Needs in Northern BC
Mark Sondheim, Integrated Land Management Bureau and Steve Botham, Regional District of Fraser-Fort George

 

Workshops
Tuesday, May 30

Digital Communities - Solutions for Local/Regional Government
Brian Greening, ESRI Canada

This is a management-focused workshop exploring the application of geospatial information technology to meet the needs of local/regional government. This is a non-technical session that does not discuss products or feature/function but rather solution studies where GIS can help communities meet their operational needs. This is an excerpt from ESRI Canada's latest "Digital Communities" series and is a 2 hour seminar aimed to generate lots of discussion.

Cadastral Compilation and meeting the ICIS standards
Ken Rigler (Lead GIS Coordinator) and Pete Flagg (General Manager) of ICIS, Integrated Cadastral Mangement Society

Open Source Web Mapping with the Flexible Internet Spatial Template (FIST)
Aaron Koning and Scott Emmons, University of Northern BC
http://datashare.gis.unbc.ca/fist/

This presentation takes the form of a hands on workshop where each participant will be provided a CD with software (to take home), a Windows XP workstation and instruction on how to install and use open source web mapping software. If participants wish, they may bring their own GIS layers in shapefile format, which they can add to their web mapping site. When participants leave this workshop they will be able to install and begin using a web mapping site in minutes. The proposed outline is as follows:

 

Sponsors

We would like to thank the following sponsors for helping out with the 2006 conference: