Geospatial data integration for applications in flood prediction and management in the Red River Basin

Following the 1997 flood, the Red River Basin Task Force recommended the development of an international geospatial database. This database will consist of remotely sensed and GIS data that will eventually be implemented in the decision support system, to improve forecasting and modelling of the Red River basin. This project demonstrates the cross border issues and challenges encountered in the process of merging roads and hydrography vectors from Canadian and US federal governments. The major differences in the datasets between countries are: classification systems, details of attributes, validation dates, and mapping scales. Discrepancies include: horizontal offsets, feature density variations, feature discontinuities, and attribute discontinuities at the border. Flood extent vectors were extracted from RADARSAT images to provide an overview of flood extent at specific time within the Red River basin.