Time-Series Land-use/Land-cover Classifications of the Athabasca Oil Sands Surface Mineable Area Derived from Landsat Multispectral Data; 1985 to 2016 (Image data, TIFF format)

The time-series land classification raster data of the oil sands surface mineable were derived from Landsat multispectral data. They contain 15 classes: 1 - Coniferous - Closed Jack Pine, 2 - Coniferous - White Spruce, 3 - Broadleaf - Closed Deciduous, 4 - Coniferous Leading Mixedwood - Closed, 5 - Mixedwood - Closed, 6 - Shrub - Closed Upland, 7 - Wetlands - Graminoid, 8 - Wetlands - Shrubby, 9 - Coniferous - Black Spruce Bog, 10 - Wetland - Undifferentiated, 11 - Water, 12 - Exposed - Barren Land, 13 - Bare - Open Pine, 14 - Developed Footprints, and 15 - Burned Areas - Little Biomass. 

The oil sands surface mineable area, Township 89 to 103, Range 3 to 14, west of the 4th Meridian, falls within the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP) area. As part of Alberta’s Land-use Framework, LARP was developed in 2012 to set the stage for robust growth, vibrant communities, and a healthy environment within the region. One of its implementation objectives is to balance the economic development of oil sands and impacts on ecosystems and the environment. This is to be achieved through enhanced science-based monitoring for improved characterization of the environment and collection of the information necessary to understand cumulative effects.
    
The time-series are stacked to create a 16-band TIFF image with each band representing the year. Bands 1 to 5 are from 1985 to 2005 at five-year intervals and the remaining bands are annual land classification between 2006 and 2016.

The title and filename of this dataset have been changed from the original publication, which covered the time interval from 1985 to 2015. They have been modified to reflect the new time interval.