The Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation (CCMEO) (formerly ''Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS)'') is a branch of

Natural Resources Canada Natural Resources Canada (NRCan; french: Ressources naturelles Canada; french: RNCan, label=none)Natural Resources Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Natural Resources (). is the dep ...

's Earth Science Sector. It was created in 1970 with

Lawrence Morley Lawrence Whitaker Morley (February 19, 1920 – April 22, 2013) was a Canadian geophysicist and remote sensing pioneer. He was best known for his studies on the magnetic properties of the oceanic crust and their effect on plate tectonics and for ...

as the first Director General. The department also works closely with the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

, especially with the development of

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...

software.

Responsibilities

The responsibilities of the CCRS are to provide remotely sensed geographical information to decision makers, related industries and the

general public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlic ...

. The Centre constructs

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring information about Earth ...

technology and applications. It is also working closely with other departments for the

Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

, which helps distribute acquired information. The CCRS also has the responsibility of maintaining the

Atlas of Canada The Atlas of Canada (french: L'Atlas du Canada) is an online atlas published by Natural Resources Canada that has information on every city, town, village, and hamlet in Canada. It was originally a print atlas, with its first edition being publishe ...

. The Atlas is a summary of the information acquired that is released to the general public. The CCRS operates two remote sensing ground stations, the

Gatineau Satellite Station The Gatineau Satellite Station is a Canadian satellite station located in Cantley near Gatineau , in the province of Québec. Like the Prince Albert Radar Laboratory, it was originally a military Radar station, operated by the Canadian Defe ...

and the Prince Albert Satellite Station.

Sub-units

The department is coordinated into the following sub-units. * Applications Division * Data Acquisition Division * Director General's Office * Earth Observation and GeoSolutions Division * GeoAccess Division * Geomatics Canada - Geodetic Survey Division

Selected Programs

GlobeSAR was a very important Program that propelled Canada and the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing as a key contributor to the international Earth Observation Community, and positioned companies such as Radarsat International Inc (now part of MacDonald Detwiller and Associates) and

Intermap Intermap Technologies () is a publicly traded company headquartered in Douglas County, Colorado, United States. Intermap provides geospatial solutions that allow GIS professionals in commercial and government organizations worldwide to build a bro ...

(formerly Intera) as key commercial partners in providing data and services based on

Synthetic Aperture Radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target region to provide fine ...

imagery. The GlobeSAR program included the collection of airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia/Pacific region. The primary purpose of GlobeSAR was to strengthen the capability of the participating countries to use radar data in resource management applications, and to prepare for the use of data from the Canadian

Radarsat-1 RADARSAT-1 was Canada's first commercial Earth observation satellite. It utilized synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to obtain images of the Earth's surface to manage natural resources and monitor global climate change. As of March 2013, the satelli ...

satellite which was launched in 1995. Canadian scientists and experts traveled throughout the world to collect, process and distribute the data to collaborating scientists in host countries. A series of training seminars were held over the course of several years, which greatly contributed to improving awareness and also developing applications of

imagery.

External links

Canada Centre for Remote Sensing

References

Synthetic aperture radar Natural Resources Canada {{Canada-gov-stub