Vegetation Mapping at Tuktuk Nogait National Park
Principal Investigator: Raillard, Martin (1)
Licence Number: 12987
Organization: Parks Canada
Licensed Year(s): 1998
Issued: Jul 06, 1998
Project Team: Christian Bucher, Alan Fehr

Objective(s): This project will take place in Tuktuk Nogait National Park in 1998 and 1999. The objective is to map the vegetation of the park. As many areas of the Park as possible will be hiked and the various vegetation communities along the hiking route will be puThe main study objectives are to: 1) determine the status of permafrost landforms in the study area, and 2) determine long-term recovery after abandonment of the CANOL No. 1 project. Both these objectives are part of long-term studies in the area that were initiated in 1974. Intensive investigations were carried out in 1974, 1977-82 and 1990. With climate change potentially resulting in warming in the north it is important to know the current condition of permafrost landforms. Since 1945 disturbances have been affected by natural processes of revegetation and studies have been underway since 1977 to determine the nature of this process.

Project Description: This project will take place in Tuktuk Nogait National Park in 1998 and 1999. The objective of the project is to map the vegetation of the park. As many areas of the Park as possible will be hiked and the various vegetation communities along the hiking route will be put into one of several classes, and their exact geographical location recorded. Once the field season is over, these various geographical locations and their associated vegetation community class is input into a computer. A satellite image of the Park and the location of the vegetation communities is generated. The computer is programmed to recognise all the locations on the satellite image of the Park that look the same. All the similar looking vegetation communities found in the Park will then be given a particular colour on the satellite image of the entire park. The end product will be a satellite image of the whole park in several different colours - each colour representing one of the several vegetation communities and its exact location and extent on the map. In 1999 this vegetation map will be taken into the field and checked for accuracy. Some plant specimens will be collected during the vegetation mapping work in order to assemble a herbarium of the plants found in the Park. These plant specimens will also be used for educational purposes. The Park Biologist and a crew of three will undertake this work. The field crew will be working out of three field camps that will be accessed by float plane. A hard copy and digitized vegetation map of the Park and accompanying report will be produced and made available to the Board and community organizations.