A Desktop-Based Methodology for Collecting Wetland Reference data over Inaccessible Arctic Landscapes

Arctic environments are remote and inaccessible, making conventional field-based data collection challenging. Thus, this study describes an efficient desktop-based methodology for deriving reference data to support large-scale remote sensing classification focusing on wetland ecosystems. Our study area was Canada's Southern Arctic Ecozone. Various Earth observation (EO) datasets, including optical, multi-spectral, and topographic, were used as a base to support a photointerpretation process for collecting reference data. Ten 30-by-30-kilometer sampling plots were established across the ecozone for this activity based on a suite of minimum criteria. Reference polygons were assigned to one of the five major wetland classes of the Canadian Wetland Classification System (CWCS), along with a detailed wetland type definition. It is anticipated this methodology will be applied later to other northern ecozones to support large-scale wetland classification updates and status and trends reporting.