16 September 1983 Landsat data aiding park planning

Computer analysis of area information gathered by the Landsat satellite is helping planning for national parks in Canada, according to Professor John B. Theberge, from the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

Professor Theberge is Visiting Professor in the Centre for Resource Management at Lincoln College.

He is on sabbatical leave from the School of Urban and Regional Planning and the Department of Biology at Waterloo, and will be at Lincoln College until late December.

He is here to learn about approaches used in New Zealand for surveying natural areas, and gaining ecological information for park planning and management.

Professor Theberge said he was particularly interested in Landsat computer analysis of area information for park planning.

"Landsat is becoming more widely used as the technology improves ; the information is getting better and we are looking at areas of three to four thousand square miles,'' he said.

"We are getting much more information much more quickly by computer analysis."

Professor Theberge said that in park planning there was the need to develop classification of land forms and vegetation.

This used to be done on foot, or by aerial photographs, but such photographs did not have good definition.

Landsat ,allowed classification of different areas so that later values could be assigned to these from a park standpoint.

The areas could be examined to determine if these were diverse, unique or representative, or unstable in terms of geomorphology.

Specific information, such as all areas of a particular type of beech forest, could be obtained quickly by Landsat computer analysis.

"The computer can be asked to find and map all areas of that community type - that is all beech forests," he said.

Professor Theberge said that wise land management involved a balance between four basic strategies : preservation, protection, management use (extraction) and restoration.

While at Lincoln College Professor Theberge will work with the Centre for Resource Management and the Department of Horticulture, Parks and Recreation.

He will teach in the parks and recreation course, and in related matters in wildlife, and park and reserve planning and management.

Professor Theberge will also pursue research interests, among these will be learning more about the response of introduced deer in the absence of natural predators.

He gained his PhD at the University of British Columbia with a study of the ptarmigan, species of grouse in sub-polar regions.

His study l was concerned with the aggressive behaviour of the ptarmiqan which caused population of the ptarmigan to increase and decrease over a 10-year cycle.

His main research interests are in the econology of wolves and their prey, and in park planning and management ; in
Canada he works a lot in existing and proposed national parks.

Professor Theberge said that in Canada during the last decade or so there had been an increasing concern about the
environment.

However, interest had waned slightly as the economic situation became more  difficult, but there were now policies that
came into being when concern was higher.

"We are now much much ahead of a decade or so ago, but there is still a lot of tension between industry and the environmentalists," he said.