Geospatial Science

Department of Geography

Research Group

Research Group

At the University of Calgary, Geospatial Science represents integrative science and technology approaches to better understand, map, monitor, model and visualize the spatiotemporal nature of people, places, and processes. Central to this is the acquisition and analysis of terrestrial datasets using (i) remote sensing, (ii) geographic information systems, (iii) digital image-processing and visualization software, (iv) data-mining and spatial statistics and (v) navigational/global positioning systems.

In our department, faculty members and graduate research teams conduct world-class geospatial research, which includes novel algorithm and tool/model development as well as the analysis of data as diverse as airborne thermal imagery to quantify urban waste heat, interferometric SAR to monitor glacial ice movement, hyperspectral optical imagery to evaluate temporal vegetation phenology, high-resolution weather data to characterize the spatial-temporal patterns of meteorological variability, LiDAR to quantify forest biomass and above-ground-carbon, multispectral optical imagery to map and model Grizzly bear habitat, and understanding the relationships between disease and socio-economic variables. The department hosts a Definiens Center of Excellence and is a leader in Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis. Several faculty members are also actively involved in Techterra, a new $25M+ Alberta Ingenuity Center of Excellence in Integrated Resource Management that focuses on developing operational commercial solutions with geospatial technologies. These are just a few of the projects taking place in our department.

Research Projects

  • Definiens Centre of Excellence
  • GEOBIA: GEO-Object-Based Image Analysis
  • Hypertemporal image analysis
  • IMMERSRE :: Investigating Multi Modal Representations of Spatial Environments
  • INTERNATIONAL CARTOGRAPHIC ASSOCIATION: Commission on Maps and Graphics for Blind and Visually Impaired People
  • Spatial Analysis Research in Computational Science (SPARCS)