Research Project Title:

Geostatistical Analysis and Integration of Soil Chemistry Data with Remote Sensing Information in the Greater Sudbury Area

Project Description:

The research project focuses on a geostatistical study of historical soil chemistry data that is available for the Greater Sudbury area, with the main objective of evaluating the regional, geospatial distribution of measured trace element concentrations and their dependency on the interpolation statistics of choice as well as fulfilling broader objectives of environmental monitoring and human impact assessment (related to the airborne smelters contamination processes mapped in past multi-year studies). Further to this, a GIS integration of geochemical data with available remote sensing information in the Sudbury area will be sought to better constrain the impact of soil contamination on the vegetation and obtain more recent representations of the effects of the regreening program, by using up-to-date (past 2013) satellite data. This computer-based GIS work will be conducted to integrate geochemical and remote sensing data in the form of validated thematic maps and geostatistical models.