Objectives of Over time,there has been a change in the size and shape of the boundary of the village/town project
Answers
Coherent national analyses of the physical form and growth patterns of settlements and the resulting socio-economic and environmental impacts requires data sets that are comparable over time and space. At the same time, these data sets must track changes in the physical form of settlements as precisely as possible.
The research phase of this project included an in depth analysis of existing settlements-related data sets and a review of the relevant literature. While many useful national data sets on settlements were found, not all were produced at regular intervals and most, owing to their underlying methodology, yielded settlement boundary results that were not comparable over time and space. For example, in the past some boundaries were created using coarse data that did not necessarily reflect the true physical form of settlements; oftentimes this resulted in the inclusion of other land uses, such as agriculture, within the boundaries of settlements.
Datasets are produced for different reasons. For instance, census geographic boundaries at Statistics Canada were not developed to provide precise measures of settled areas or to conduct detailed time series analyses on the physical form of Canada's cities, towns and villages. These 'census geographies' are often designed according to administrative information. As a result, they tend to have limited utility when examining issues such as land use change because the boundaries do not always reflect areas that have been physically altered for settlement purposes.
The new approach presented in this research paper addresses current data gaps and allows the coherent mapping of settlements across the country. 1 The new methodology takes advantage of more refined census boundaries and satellite-based data sets to help address the challenges noted above.
There is strong policy and research interest for this research project. For example, Infrastructure Canada will use the results for research and analysis activities related to of Canada's infrastructure needs and programs. The methodology also fills an important data gap in Statistics Canada's Land Accounts. It allows the creation of a new land use/land cover change matrix, which is used to track changes in land use and land cover over time.