Turning Satellite Data into Impact: Five Canadian EO Projects Move to Next Phase

6 July 2025 GoGeomatics Canada | biodiversity
CSA

Satellite data is used in a wide range of fields, from climate change studies, maritime surveillance to the protection of ecosystems and biodiversity.
In , through its Accelerating Earth Observation Innovations request for proposals, the Government of Canada invested $1.1 million in 22 Canadian companies to develop new ways to use satellite data. These companies were asked to create innovative solutions to address Canada’s environmental and socioeconomic challenges. Each received up to $50,000 for Stage 1 to define their ideas.

Five companies have now been selected to advance to Stage 2, according to the Canadian Space Agency. In this next phase, companies received up to $780,000 to develop and demonstrate their proposed solutions for business and government users.

C-CORE to mitigate Arctic challenges using artificial intelligence

With the increase in Arctic temperatures over recent decades, permafrost and other frozen terrain features are melting. This releases their methane reserves, which contributes to increases in global warming.C-CORE is planning to use satellite imagery and other complementary data sources such as data collected directly on the ground and images captured by drones, along with advanced AI methods to monitor terrain changes in Arctic regions. In turn, the gathered data would help create maps of landscape features like permafrost slumps, erosion, and wetlands to support Territorial governments and communities.

Arctic terrain. Source: CSA

Mission Control to demonstrate onboard satellite detection for real-time wildfire response

As climate change drives hotter, drier conditions, wildfires in Canada and around the world are becoming increasingly frequent and intense, threatening lives, infrastructure and the environment. Wildfire first responders need timely satellite data to inform their decisions during critical situations.

Mission Control is developing a machine learning application for use onboard satellites to deliver wildfire detection products that can be relayed to wildfire managers in near real time. They will gather and refine new wildfire training data using drones and satellites and deploy the resulting algorithms to Mission Control’s Persistence satellite. The algorithm will detect wildfires onboard and demonstrate the value of the application to future wildfire detection satellite missions and users.

Wildfires in Saskatchewan, Canada, in May 2025. (Credit: NASA, Landsat-9 satellite; Source: CSA)

Hatfield to develop eelgrass mapping system

Canada’s coastal eelgrass beds are declining due to a range of climate change-related threats. This calls for detailed, large-scale mapping to assess their impact on fish populations and aquatic biodiversity, and to guide conservation efforts.

Hatfield will use satellite data and artificial intelligence techniques to map eelgrass beds at large scale – over the entire coast of British Columbia – addressing current gaps left by localized field studies and aerial surveys. This will benefit habitat restoration and Marine Protected Area management.

Intertidal zone including eelgrass in green, sediment in purple and grey, and water in black, along the coast near Boundary Bay, BC, captured by a SuperDove satellite. (Credit: image © Planet Labs PBC; Source: CSA)

AltaML to develop AI modelling using satellite data to protect whales

A significant challenge in using satellite imagery and artificial intelligence (AI) modelling to detect and monitor whales is building the right databases to train and test the AI models to recognize whales.

AltaML will use advanced AI techniques to create a database of realistic synthetic images, which will later be used to train AI models with real satellite data. This project would help protect large aquatic animals and aid researchers to understand their behaviour and impact on the ecosystem.

Satellite (left) and drone (right) image comparison. Aerial and drone images will be used to generate synthetic satellite images with the goal of improving whale detection and monitoring. (Credit: satellite image, © Maxar Technologies and drone image, Giona Lonati, University of New Brunswick; Source: CSA)

Fluvial Systems Research to integrate satellite data into North Atlantic right whale protection measures

Protecting North Atlantic right whales (NARW) in Canadian waters, while maintaining commercial shipping and fishing operations, is a key challenge. NARWs are hard to detect in the open ocean because they constantly move across their large migratory and feeding areas.

Fluvial Systems Research will validate and perform operational demonstrations of a three-step methodology using satellite data to detect and monitor the movement of the whales. This project could provide additional NARW locations to Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Whale Insight platform, improve detection probabilities, and enhance situational awareness for Transport Canada in shipping lanes.

Five North Atlantic right whales were spotted in a Pléiades Neo satellite image taken over Cape Cod Bay on April 9, 2023. The whales are swimming within a biogenic slick which can be observed in RADARSAT Constellation Mission imagery. The whales were automatically detected in the optical imagery by a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained on a database of North Atlantic right whale imagery. (Credit: Pléiades Neo image © Airbus; Source: CSA)

 

GoGeomatics Canada

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