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A priority of the Canadian Forest Service and Canadian Space Agency joint project, Earth Observation for Sustainable Development of Forests (EOSD), is the production of a land cover map of the forested area of Canada based upon Landsat data. The land cover will be produced through a partnership of federal, provincial and territorial governments, universities, and industry. The short-term goal of EOSD is to complete a land cover map representing year 2000 forested area conditions by early 2006. Over the longer term, EOSD will aim to produce land cover products to capture changes in forest conditions over time to support national and international reporting requirements. The forested area of Canada represents approximately half of Canada's landmass, requiring over 450 scenes for complete coverage (with overlap minimized). EOSD is working with provincial and territorial mapping agencies that have on-going land cover mapping programs to optimize production capacity. It is envisioned that the combined output of EOSD and provincial and territorial land cover mapping programs will be integrated with maps developed by other sectors and agencies (such as agriculture) to produce a complete representation of the land cover of Canada. Large-area land cover mapping using remote sensing is a relatively new phenomenon. Advances in data storage capabilities, computing power, and increases in the affordability of data have allowed for large-area projects to be undertaken in ways previously not possible. The manner in which a large-area mapping project is approached is related to a number of factors including the spatial extent of the area of interest, the spatial resolution of the selected sensor, and the products which are to be generated. In this communication we report on the strategy, methods, and status of the EOSD land cover mapping program of the forested area of Canada.Key words: Canada, land cover, forest inventory, EOSD, Landsat, unsupervised classification, NFI Une priorité du projet conjoint du Service canadien des forêts et de l'Agence spatiale canadienne, Observation de la Terre pour le développement durable des forêts (OTDD), est la production d'une carte de la productivité du territoire pour le territoire forestier du Canada au moyen des données Landsat. La productivité du territoire sera déterminée en fonction d'un partenariat des gouvernements fédéral, provinciaux et territoriaux, des universités et de l'industrie. L'objectif à court terme de l'OTDD est de compléter une carte de la productivité du territoire en fonction de la couverture terrestre du territoire boisé en 2000 d'ici le début de 2006. À long terme, l'OTDD visera à produire des informations sur la couverture terrestre afin de saisir les modifications des conditions forestières en fonction du temps pour faire rapport sur la scène nationale et internationale. Le territoire forestier du Canada représente environ la moitié du territoire terrestre du Canada, nécessitant plus de 450 images pour obtenir une couverture complète (avec un recouvrement minimal...

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Multisource data consisting of satellite imagery, topographic descriptors derived from DEMs, and GIS inventory information have been used with a detailed, eld-based landcover classi cation scheme to support a quantitative analysis of the spatial distribution and con guration of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) habitat within the Alberta Yellowhead Ecosystem study area. The map is needed to determine if bear movement and habitat use patterns are a V ected by changing landscape conditions and human activities. We compared a multisource Evidential Reasoning (ER) classi cation algorithm, capable of handling this large and diverse data set, to a more conventional maximum likelihood decision rule which could only use a subset of the available data. The ER classi er provided an acceptable level of accuracy (ranging to 85% over 21 habitat classes) for a level 3 product, compared to 71% using a maximum likelihood classi er.