Canada has 418 million hectares of forests, representing 10% of the forested land in the world [I]. In 1997, Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol and agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by six percent below the 1990 level between 2008 and 2012 [2]. This agreement was ratified in December 2002. It requires Canada to report Canada's sustainable forest resources, including information about forest carbon, afforestation, reforestation, and deforestation (ARD). To fulfill this commitment, effective and accurate measuring tools are needed. One of these tools is satellite remote sensing, a cost-effective way to examine large forested areas in Canada for timely forest information. Historically, the study of forest aboveground carbon was carried out with detailed forest inventory and field sampling from temporary and permanent sample plots, which severely limited the forest area that could be studied. For regional and global scales, it is necessary to use remote sensing for aboveground carbon and ARD mapping due to time and financial constraints. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to develop, implement, and evaluate a computing system that uses multitemporal Landsat satellite images [3] to estimate the Kyoto-Protocol-related forest parameters and create geo-referenced maps, showing the spatial distribution of these parameters in a Geographic Information System (GIs). The new computing system consists of a segment-based and supervised classification engine with feature selection functionality and a Kyoto-Protocol-products estimation unit. The inclusion of the feature selection reduces the large dimensionality of the feature space of multitemporal remote Landsat data sets. Thus, more images could be added into the data sets for analysis. The implementation of the segment-based classifiers provides more accurate forest cover classifications for estimating the Kyoto Protocol products than pixel-based classifiers. It is expected that this approach will be a new addition to the current existing methodologies for supporting Canada's reporting commitments on the sustainability of the forest resources in Canada. This approach can also be used by other countries to monitor Canada's compliance with international agreements.

A description of the Canada Land Capability Classification for forestry, and an analysis of data collected in the East Kootenay and Vanderhoof Districts of British Columbia were presented. A brief description of the climate, geology, physiography and soils in the East Kootenays was given. A description of the objectives of the land capability for forestry and a survey of the pertinent literature was included. The determination of Forest Land Productivity, and the accuracy of assigned productivity classes, were reviewed. It was found that the sources of error in productivity determinations included: (1) insufficient plots, (2) problems in defining 'normal' stocking, (3) extrapolation of MAI to a base of 100 years, (4) a strong tendency to select plots on northern aspects, and (5) the exclusion of plots on soils not representative of soil series descriptions. Two alternative methods for assigning productivity classes were discussed. They were point sampling and regression techniques. Both the point sampling and regression techniques gave results comparable to the conventional method, i.e. MAI determinations based on 1/5th acre plots, within prescribed constraints, and only in the interior of British Columbia. Results obtained from point samples on Vancouver Island were significantly different from those obtained on one-twentieth acre plots. The assignment of productivity subclasses was discussed. Here the only method presently feasible is a value judgement made by research workers. The results of the study revealed three areas where further research would result in a more accurate Forest Land Classification. These areas include: (1) the measurement of environmental factors which determine forest productivity, (2) the use of field and greenhouse experiments to establish methods for determining the relative effect of environmental influences in limiting tree growth, and (3) a more extensive study of the use of various sampling techniques to get a direct measure of productivity in terms of MAI. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

Forests and the forest industry have been dominant features in North Central British Columbia since initial settlement of the area in the 1900's. Trees have been logged and sawed into lumber to be sold to the residents of the three prairie provinces, and more recently, peeled for plywood and chipped for pulp to be exported abroad. As a result of the region's peripheral location and dependence upon these distant markets, the industry has had to adjust continuously to external pressures. Changing conditions such as expansion or contraction of markets, government decisions to build railways, changes in provincial forest management policies, and the introduction of a pulp economy to the area, have forced the industry to adapt its processes and products so that the North Central Interior could compete with other forest product regions. A gradual rationalization of the industry has occurred in both the structure and location of producing units within the region. Several periods in the development of the industry are identifiable as a series of external stimuli, and internal responses. In its initial years, in the early 1900's, the industry consisted of a few sawmills cutting rough lumber along the upper Fraser River. Later, in the years prior to World War II, poor market conditions restricted the industry in size, technological improvement and areal spread. The buoyant market conditions of the 1940's and 1950's encouraged growth in the number of operations and dispersion of cutting operations into remote areas. At this time, shortages of labour, equipment and capital combined with an indefinite forest management policy promoted the development of a large number of small, undercapitalized operations. The growth of large-scale production units, diversification of production and areal concentration of conversion plants have been the responses of the industry in the 1960's. A number of external forces such as changes in provincial forest management policies, changing market demands and rising labour costs have encouraged these responses. This thesis presents an overview of the development of the forest industry, rather than concentrating upon the individual locative decision. Particular firms are used, however, to illustrate changes in structure and location which are characteristic of certain periods. Emphasis is also placed upon the role exogenous forces and traditional locative factors have played in the changes. Interviews with entrepreneurs in the area, and data from trade journals and government publications provide most of the information presented here. The changes in size and location of producing units within the forest industry of North Central British Columbia from 1909 to 1966 are outlined first, with particular reference to external influences and industry responses. Comparisons are made of the structure and spatial patterns of the industry in 1925, 1950 and 1966. An analysis of (a) the external forces, (b) the internal adjustments of the region and, (c) the resultant pattern of location, constitutes the major part of the study. A summary of these forces, predictions of the future pattern of development and an outline of the general findings of this examination conclude the thesis. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

The colonial contribution to the French naval shipbuilding industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, explored within the context of the forest from which the resources for the industry were taken, was a remarkably successful venture that came to an end with the onset of war. In the past, the end of the French naval shipbuilding industry in New France has been attributed to the action or inaction of France that resulted in the inefficient use of forest resources. Issues of interest in, organization or support of colonial efforts by France, however, were nevertheless, limited by the immutable realities of the colonial forest environment. This thesis argues that the success of the industry, considered within the appropriate context, is a consequence of colonial persistence in the face of constraints imposed by the colonial forest environment---despite these other significant issues. / The official correspondence, written by colonial officials in New France, record colonial efforts to supply France with timber and detail the development of a naval shipbuilding industry in the colony. These documents provide source material for a case study that demonstrates the constraints imposed by the colonial forests on the experience of colonists, timber suppliers and shipbuilders. The colonial forest was not the same as the forests in France. A simple transfer of knowledge and practice from one forest to another was insufficient to deal with the differences in climate, forest age, tree species and the extent to which human activity affected the different forests. These differences challenged the way in which colonists could use forest resources for their own needs, for export to France and for naval construction. To consider this use of resources, without considering the differences between the available materials in the colony and those available in France, is to look at the story removed from the setting in which it took place. The unique forest in the colony was the setting in which colonial shipbuilding took place. Any study of the development of this industry, or any other industry that relied on forest resources, must give consideration to the constraints and realities of that forest.

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