Canadian Geospatial Briefing August 29th
1. Going back to the moon
2. Tracking wildfire smoke
3. MariaDB acquires CubeWerx
4. Mammal movement in Canada
5. Maxwell Creek Watershed Project
6. Tech companies receiving $50 million
7. Living Atlas of CanadaHumans are heading back to the moon — and Canada is playing a bigger role than you may realize
NASA launches its most powerful rocket
NASA is set to launch its newest and most powerful rocket this August 29th as part of the uncrewed Artemis I mission. Humans will be going back to the moon after 50 years and Canadians are contributing to this mission in three major ways. Canada will be sending an astronaut as part of the Artemis II mission, this will be the first time a Canadian astronaut travels to deep space. MDA and Canadensys are designing a lunar rover that can withstand two weeks of lunar night’s freezing temperatures. Lastly, MDA is currently working on Canadarm3, a crucial tool in the building of the lunar gateway.
Article can be viewed here
Tracking wildfire smoke will be crucial for everyone as the planet warms. Here’s why
The ability for us to track wildfire smoke has increasingly become more and more important and although these models can be very complex to create, they have become more accurate. Blue Sky has various publicly available smoke forecasting models that are created from Natural Resources Canada data, ground reports and satellite imagery. The Wildfire Smoke Prediction System in Canada and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States also have a system to forecast wildfire smoke. Wildfires have become more intense as we deal with climate change and to be able to accurately predict when and where wildfire smoke will occur is crucial to reducing the various negative impacts caused by wildfire smoke.
Wildfire smoke in Pacific Northwest region August 2018. Source: NASA Earth Observatory/NASA GSFC/Lauren Daphin
Article can be viewed here
MariaDB acquires Canadian Geospatial Company CubeWerx
Open-sourced database MariaDB has acquired CubeWerx, a Canadian geospatial company. This acquisition will help improve MariaDB’s cloud service MariaDB SkySQL by adding geospatial capabilities.
Article can be viewed here
Canada ranks high for mammal movement between protected areas: Study
A recent study performed by the World Wildlife Fund, University of British Columbia (UBC) and the University of Colorado Boulder shows that in Canada mammals are moving more freely between protected areas that include nature reserves and national parks. Canada ranked third in this study for mammal movement and the study found that our protected areas are more connected. While Canada does rank very high for mammal movement, this study still points out that more can be done to increase movement throughout the country.
The probability of global mammal movement. Source: Brennan et al, Science 377:1101-1104 (2022)
Article can be viewed here
Maxwell Creek Watershed Project Field Files Part 2: Developing surveying methodologies
The Maxwell Creek Watershed Project looks at ecological conditions both existing and historical. This project looks at hydrological dynamics, freshwater availability, and forest ecology. Andrew Simon is working on geospatial analysis for the project and is developing a story mapping framework that will be publicly available. The watershed project is using geospatial technology and LiDAR to analyze existing conditions and answer some further questions about how forest canopy may influence things like understory and soil moisture.
Maxwell Creek Douglas fir. Source: Pierre Mineau
Read more about the project here
D-Wave, Coveo, Canada Drives among tech companies receiving collective $50 million for scale ai projects
The Canadian tech companies D-Wave, Mimik, Moov AI, Coveo, and Canada Drives are some of the tech companies that are receiving $50 million in funds collected from the private sector. Scale AI alone has contributed $17.2 million to go towards funding 12 projects.
Article can be viewed here
Navigate the Living Atlas of Canada Easily with this New Dashboard
Explore the new Living Atlas Dashboard that shows newly added dashboards, dashboards that are trending in Canada, bilingual dashboards, live feeds and top categories. This tools also allows you to select by category and region to view the dashboards you may be most interested in.
Living Atlas Dashboard Source: ESRI Canada
Read more about the living atlas dashboard here
