At B.C.'s Selkirk Community College in the tiny Kootenay community of Castlegar, students from a multiplicity of academic backgrounds are reinventing a military mapping technology for peaceful purposes.
Instructor Donna Delparte with students, from right, Leah Axt, Carman Perry and Skye Dunbar, in Selkirk College's GIS course for Integrated Environmental Planning Technology. They are evaluating terrain for Mountain Caribou habitat suitability. Photo: David Glunns/Selkirk
Instructor Donna Delparte with students, from right, Leah Axt, Carman Perry and Skye Dunbar, in Selkirk College's GIS course for Integrated Environmental Planning Technology. They are evaluating terrain for Mountain Caribou habitat suitability. Photo: David Glunns/Selkirk
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The college's Geospatial Research Centre, which opened in 2004, has become a leading Canadian research centre in Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, a mapping and data system which creates multi-layered geospatial pages of information to specific areas to allow government, business and industry to quickly and accurately gauge everything to the flora and fauna found on a mountainside, to the demographics and crime statistics of an urban setting.
The chairman of Selkirk College's School of Renewable Resources, Peter Schroder, said the centre has three mandates: applied research in GIS technologies and remote sensing for clients, training for students in this growth industry and application development.
"It's attracted researchers from other places to come here and answer applied research questions that are usually generated by business, government or industry," he said.
The college offers two qualifications to students, a one-year advanced diploma or two-year bachelor's degree in GIS, Mr. Schroder said. There are currently 14 students in the program, although about 100 students at the school in other disciplines will learn the basics of GIS.
The technology spans many different disciplines, leading to a program with student of vastly varied backgrounds. Students can come from general or environment science backgrounds, as well as geology, urban planning, medicine and even law.
"You'll find GIS and remote sensing being applied in business situations, like you might be trying to figure out where the next Wal-Mart will go, based on demographics or location to supply line," Mr. Schroder said.
"You could also use GIS technology in crime prevention, by logging where crimes take place and adding other variables like make that area unique, or in renewable resource planning, or logistics planning."
Some applications for business are less obvious, though nonetheless useful to the clients, he added.
"I worked with a boat manufacturer who was trying to get their product into southern Ontario from B.C., and they wanted us to look at the flow of events that took their boat from where they were being manufactured to where they were purchased. There were a variety of more efficient things to consider that would not have been apparent if we did not have GIS."
In another field, the forestry industry, Mr. Schroder said they deal with land management issues.
"A lot of the GIS remote sensing tools are aids in decision making, so they have a variety of constraints to meet in a given area: timber value, wildlife value, recreation and water use values, esthetics values. Balancing all that isn't easy if you can't add and remove the information from your analysis relatively easily, and that's what a GIS will allow you to do."
Federal and provincial money were equally matched to open the program, but neither would have supported the school without 20 per cent of the total coming from the private sector. Supporters run from mining giant TeckCominco to Slocan Forest Products to the Kootenay Savings Credit Union.
The provincial government has also played an invaluable role to research by opening its information systems.
"In British Columbia, the government has spent years collecting data on vegetation and terrain. Which is another important partnership for us — we've got access to the BC provincial data. The technology doesn't go very far without the data," said Mr. Schroder.
Selkirk's graduates are finding work across the country.
"As a field GIS is growing in importance. Having that applied degree is also bringing status to the colleges," said Mr. Schroder.
"We have serve a provincial and regional audience primarily, but that said our graduates go to the many corners of Canada," he said.
Mr. Schroder said many have gone to the government agency B.C. Timber Sales, some to the province's firefighting branch, while others have been hired by provincial surveys around the country. Private industry hirings are not as high, but remain steady despite the recession, he added.
The Nova Scotia Community College has similar programs to Selkirk College's, says Dave MacLean, who teaches GIS at the college. He used Google Earth as a high-profile example of how the potential of GIS is being used widely.
"Google Earth made an impact… and if people are familiar with it they are aware it is presented nicely. Some of our graduates concentrate on layers and themes that are similar to programs like Google Earth, with the visualization as lines, dots, etc," he said.
Mr. MacLean believes the technology is set to grow and will have appeal for geographically-minded students who want a career with a strong future across Canada and the United States.
"It has always been a growth industry and there continues to many opportunities," he said.
James Knight, the CEO of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, is familiar with both programs. He said both allowed students to gain practical fieldwork experience in the community, was increasingly important to certain types of employers and was a technology that is still in its infancy.
"The programs offer a wonder range in applications. GIS was originally a military application and its inventors never understood the full potential of possibilities in fisheries, in forestry, in environmental work," he said.
Other Canadian colleges that teach GIS include six Ontario colleges: Niagara College, Durham College, Mohawk College, Fanshawe College, Fleming College and Conestoga College; the New Brunswick Community College; and Prairie West Regional College in Saskatchewan.
WHAT IS GIS
Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, is a database where researchers can ask questions about an area of land but the answers are displayed spatially in a map format, says Peter Schroder at Selkirk College's School of Renewable Resources.
Originally developed for military applications, the science has wider possibilities and is growing in popularity in government, business and science.
"For example, you can try to find caribou habitat, really good places for caribou, and you know those places are on south-facing mountain slopes at certain elevations and at a close proximity to water and certain types of vegetation," said Mr. Schroder.
"You're trying to locate places like that… You ask the question of the map 'find all the south-facing places, 1,200 metres elevation, 300 metres from a creek, growing cedar and hemlock. The GIS will return to you the answer on a map, showing you specifically where those places are."
The speed of GIS, supplying multiple layers of data quickly, combining information from aerial photograph and satellite imagery, with data gathered on the ground. It is proving a great attraction to many sectors, including environmental studies, forestry, mining, and urban planning, to name just a few.
Special to The Globe and Mail
