| Title | Thermokarst Mapping Collective: protocol for organic permafrost terrain and preliminary inventory from the Taiga Plains test area, Northwest Territories |
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| Author | Gibson, C; Morse, P D ; Kelly, J M; Turetsky, M R; Baltzer, J L; Gingras-Hill, T; Kokelj, S V |
| Source | Northwest Territories Geological Survey, NWT Open Report 2020-020, 2020, 24 pages  Open Access |
| Year | 2020 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20200789 |
| Publisher | Government of Northwest Territories |
| Document | serial |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | on-line; digital |
| File format | pdf; dbf; shp |
| Province | Northwest Territories |
| Lat/Long WENS | -130.0000 -110.0000 68.0000 60.0000 |
| Subjects | surficial geology/geomorphology; environmental geology; geophysics; Nature and Environment; Science and Technology; permafrost; ground ice; periglacial features; thermokarst; climate effects; terrain
sensitivity; remote sensing; satellite imagery; peatlands; organic deposits; vegetation; Taiga Plains; Sentinel-2; Methodology; Protocol; Climate change; Forests; Forest fires; cumulative effects |
| Illustrations | satellite images; location maps; geoscientific sketch maps; schematic representations; tables |
| Program | Climate Change
Geoscience Permafrost |
| Released | 2020 01 01 |
| Abstract | The Northwest Territories Thermokarst Mapping Collective collaboratively develops protocols to map permafrost landforms and evidence of thermokarst to create inventories and assess permafrost terrain
sensitivity for the Northwest Territories. This report presents a protocol for mapping organic permafrost terrain in the sporadic and discontinuous permafrost zone using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, and an inventory of the spatial distribution of
organic permafrost terrain (permafrost peatlands) and related thermokarst for a test area in the sporadic and discontinuous permafrost zone of the Taiga Plains, Northwest Territories. A 322 340 km2 area was mapped using a gridded classification
approach with 3.75 km x 3.75 km grid cells (within the 15 km x 15 km grid cells used by the Northwest Territories Thermokarst Collective). Of the 3.75 km x 3.75 km cells, 53% contained permafrost peatland complexes, and the degree of thermokarst
degradation decreased abruptly north of 64°N. These preliminary data precede the completion of mapping all of the Northwest Territories, including organic terrain in the continuous permafrost zone. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
The Northwest Territories Thermokarst Mapping Collective is collaboratively developing protocols to map permafrost landforms and evidence of thermokarst,
in order to create inventories and assess permafrost terrain sensitivity for the Northwest Territories. This report presents (i) a protocol for mapping organic permafrost terrain in the discontinuous permafrost zone using Sentinel-2 satellite
imagery, and (ii) an inventory of the spatial distribution of these permafrost peatlands for a test area (322 340 km2 )in the Taiga Plains, Northwest Territories. 53% of the area contained permafrost peatland complexes and the degree of thermokarst
formation decreased abruptly north of 64ºN. These preliminary data precede the completion of mapping for all of the Northwest Territories which will include organic terrain in the continuous permafrost zone. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 328180 |
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