The Conservation Mapping of World Heritage Sites project supported the Canadian Space Agency’s partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) under the World Heritage Convention. Earth observation (EO) data and geographic information systems (GIS) were used to support mapping and monitoring of two World Heritage sites in Central Africa – Kahuzi-Biega National Park and Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The goal of the project was to demonstrate EO data and GIS methods to determine the environmental impacts of human activities within selected areas of the national parks, and to define a simple mapping methodology that could support the update of national park boundaries. Emphasis was placed on simple and pragmatic image processing to produce:
- High spatial resolution image products: multi-temporal radar images based on RADARSAT-1 Fine Mode data.
- Merged radar and multi-spectral optical image products.
- Manually classified land cover products: based mainly on information derived from multi-spectral optical imagery.
- Landscape fragmentation of primary forest, watershed integrity, and ecosystem integrity products for park boundary planning purposes.
The results of the study provided a dramatic overview of the environmental impacts of the refugee crises, revealing a dramatic loss of forest cover and increase in bare ground as a result of human population increase. A methodology to create map products detailing forest integrity was created to enable managers to evaluate different criteria for boundary definition, depending on amount of bare ground within a forest area.
