2019 Peace-Athabasca Delta LiDAR Data

High-resolution ground terrain elevational data are key to assessing habitat conditions, surface water connectivity and environmental change in the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD), Northern Alberta. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technology that has recently become more common in geospatial related projects and is currently one of the best methods for surveying large areas to obtain surface elevations. As part of the Oil Sands Monitoring (OSM) Program, aerial LiDAR surveys were conducted over approximately 3500 km2 of the PAD at the end of summer 2019 to cover spatial data gaps. The LiDAR point cloud elevational data are offered as 1 km2 tiles of classified (unclassified, ground, low point noise, water, high noise) referenced to UTM NAD83 (CSRS) Zone 12 horizontal and CGVD2013 (Epoch 2010) vertical reference systems, with a RMSE of approximately 0.10 m. Following the Government of Canada Open Data initiative, this original elevational data set is available to the public.